Gomorrah

Five stories from the territory of the Camorra around Naples. A shy middle-aged man delivers money to the families of imprisoned clan members. A thirteen-year-old boy wants to be accepted by the local gang. Two teenage friends, obsessed with Scarface, think they can take on the Camorra by themselves. A gifted tailor secretly teaches Chinese competitors the craft. A polished businessman organises the illegal dumping of toxic waste on farmland. None of them is a boss. All of them belong to the system.

Matteo Garrone adapted Roberto Saviano's explosive book, the one that forced its author into police protection, and made the opposite of a gangster film. There is no glamour, no hero, no story arc. The camera stays close to people in concrete housing blocks, the Vele of Scampia looming over everything, and the violence comes suddenly and stupidly, without music. It feels almost like a documentary, and many of the actors were local non-professionals.

It is a hard film to love and impossible to forget. What stays with you is not any single murder but the sense of a whole region where the Camorra is simply the economy, the air everyone breathes. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes and the European Film Award. Later came the excellent TV series, but the film is colder and more frightening. Essential.