The idea of returning to Gomorra came about following a screening of the film with my son, who is the same age as the film, 12 years old. Rewatching the film with him, I found myself frequently having to explain certain dynamics that were unclear in the story. It wasn’t a good sign, and when we got to the episode with the tailor, Nicola asked me: “Dad, what’s happening now?” I was watching the film with the eyes of a spectator. Many years had passed and I couldn’t remember anything. Therefore, I found myself not understanding what was happening in the scene, and I answered him: “I don’t know, sweetheart”. “Why not, Dad? You made it!”. “You’re right, what can I say… I just don’t know!”. That was the push I needed to make some of the dramatic sequences clearer, without changing any of the film’s original structure. Many of the interventions we made will be invisible to the viewer, but the narrative is now clearer and more fluid.

Matteo Garrone

Gomorra is a film that will be difficult to forget and leaves no one feeling indifferent, just like the docu-novel by Roberto Saviano that it is adapted from. From the vast material that winds through the book in a non-narrative and non-linear order, the director […] fleshed out only a few impressions and segments. The film is made up of five focal points or stories, although the screen adaptation – providing a distinct light, voice, face, sound, setting and rhythm to what had been rendered by the written words – follows the same random method, with no beginning and no end. […] The stories of Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) and Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo) stand out, especially because of the actors’ strong performances. Within the intricate chain of command and responsibilities, Don Ciro’s duty is to patiently make the rounds of the families of imprisoned clan members and deliver their monthly pay; he does everything to live and behave like a dull, methodical, diligent and detached accountant. Pasquale is a skilled tailor, a fundamental link in the chain connecting haute couture with illicit work through organised crime; a Chinese competitor insists on hiring him as an instructor for his army of clandestine workers, and he relents not because he supports the rebellion but because he is flattered by the request. However, nothing comes without a cost in this world, where the only thing that matters is taking sides and the blunt alternative is dominate or be dominated, forcing choices to be made. The other stories are no less crazy or insightful. To begin with the only one that contains a slight glimmer of an alternative, there is the story of the young graduate Roberto who understands for what and for whom he is working – Franco (Toni Servillo), with his impeccable linen suit and expensive cars, a high-end trafficker of toxic waste – and walks away from it all. Impassive narration, the observational power of an entomologist, explosions of horror and madness mixed with the everyday because they are the everyday of a ‘system’ determining the lives (and deaths) of not only a small gang of thugs but also a vast community, with its tentacles spreading everywhere. Making comparisons is of course legitimate, from Coppola to Scorsese to our own great Rosi. It is also true, however, that Garrone expresses a point of view and vision that make his cinema and his film unlike anything else.

Paolo D’Agostini, “La Repubblica”, 16 May 2008