My Review: La Grande Bellezza (5/10)

"I was destined for sensibility. I was destined to become a writer. I was destined to become Jep Gambardella."

It seems director Paolo Sorrentino has become destined to evoke Fellini's work in La Dolce Vita with his skillful direction in La Grande Bellezza, and for many critics it's become one of the best films of the year. Unfortunately this film didn't work for me considering I'm not a huge fan of surrealism nor style over substance. Don't get me wrong, this is a beautiful and ambitious film that captures the artistic spirit of Rome with poetic imagery through musical set pieces. The film gives its audience a series of sensations and feelings, but it didn't feel cohesive for me. I found The Great Beauty overlong and dull. Despite engaging me with its visuals during the opening party sequence, eventually the movie wore down on me. There are some touches of comedy here and there as we follow the main protagonist's quest to finding the beauty and meaning of life. Despite the gorgeous set pieces and poetic symbolisms thrown all over the place, the journey wasn't worth taking for me considering I had a hard time relating to the main character. I know I may lose a lot of friends for not liking this film, but just as the pretentious and snobbish artists that hung around with Jep, I felt the film was exactly that: pretentious and snobbish. I didn't find any substance to the film other than the gorgeous style so I am sorry but I can't lie, this film didn't work for me.

The film opens with a few Asian tourists visiting Rome and admiring its beauty and all of a sudden one of them dies. The film then jumps right away to a party where we are introduced to a successful journalist named Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo, Il Divo and Gomorrah) who is celebrating his 65th birthday. He considers himself a sensitive man and that is what allowed him to perceive the world differently from the rest and inspire him to become a writer. He has become a legend in Rome for writing a very popular and Award winning novel several decades ago, but since then he hasn't written any more novels and dedicates himself almost exclusively to the night life of Rome. However his life takes an unexpected turn when he receives some terrible news from the past: the first woman he actually loved passed away. All of a sudden Jep begins questioning his life and decides to search for the true beauty after realizing the emptiness behind all the extravagant parties he's thrown.

I guess I'm not a reliable source when it comes to these sort of surrealist films considering I'm not a fan of the genre. I won't deny this was gorgeously directed and that the set pieces were marvelous, but I really found it to have little substance. It was self indulgent and blah blah with very little actually going on. I didn't find the film to be philosophical either, the final revelation near the end is something we've heard very often so sticking with this man's journey didn't have any reward for me personally. The film does succeed however in showing the excesses and portraying wasted talents thanks to hedonistic lifestyles. I know I'm one of the few people who didn't like this film, so don't pay attention to me and experience this ode to La Dolce Vita for yourself.

My Review: Gomorra (8/10)

¨Want to give up? Are we meat for the slaughter house? ¨

Gomorra is a very clever play on words referring to the Italian organized crime gang known as the Comorra from Naples, Italy, and also referencing to the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah from the Bible. Director Matteo Garrone takes a neorealist approach very different from the Hollywood gangster films that have been highly romanticized and delivers a raw and realistic film about the modern day crime organization that is responsible for having killed over 400,000 people in the last 30 years. Garrone adapted the screenplay from Roberto Saviano`s book of the same name (the credit has to be given to him for the clever title). Saviano went undercover for several years inside the Comorra and wrote the book based on facts even using real names and locations. Garrone decided to adapt five separate stories from the several ones that are told in the book and intertwine them in his film jumping from one story to the next throughout the 135 minutes the movie lasts. At the beginning the plot seems very confusing because we don`t have a sense of what is going on and we are just put right in the middle of separate stories, but after the first 40 minutes we begin to get a feeling of what is happening and each story begins to have one thing in common: the Comorra. These stories give us a major picture of the different levels that the crime organization operates in. If you want to know how real the film is then just ask Saviano who has to live under 24 hour protection because he received several life threatening messages from the Comorra, or ask director Garrone who had to constantly keep on changing filming locations in fear of the violent organization`s reprimands.

The movie opens with a violent introduction in which a group of men are killed inside a tanning salon. The violence isn`t stylized it is simply depicted in a raw and realistic fashion letting us know that this is the type of film we are going to get. Gomorra then begins telling five separate overlapping stories that take place in Naples. The first one has to do with a young boy named Toto (Salvatore Abruzzese) who helps out his mother as a delivery boy. He lives in a poor neighborhood and he looks up to some of the young guys who are part of a gang, and wants to join them. The second story deals with a businessman named Franco (Toni Servillo) who is closing several deals with his illegal waste management company. He offers a young graduate named Roberto (Carmine Paternoster) a job as his assistant who feels conflicted with the employment. Another story has to do with a tailor named Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo) who has been working since he was a child and now is one of the best tailors although he continues to be exploited by his boss. Then there is Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) who`s job is to pay some family members of Comorra prisoners who`s names are given to him on a list although the money never seems to be enough. The fifth story is perhaps the most entertaining one and deals with two young kids, Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone), who dream of becoming the next Tony Montana from Scarface and constantly make references to that movie.

Gomorra will change your perspective on the mafia depicting it as what it truly is, unlike what many Hollywood movies have made it out to look like. It really is a powerful film that will open your eyes and terrify you for the simplistic violence. These characters seem to have no remorse for what they do and the only two characters that can be considered as the good guys are perhaps Pasquale and Roberto. The movie does begin kind of slow and the unrelated stories overlapping each other can confuse you at first; this is not a movie for the lazy viewer; it is one that will make you think and pay attention to what is going on, but if you can manage to get past those first 40 minutes it begins to really pick up and make sense. Gomorra won the Grand Prize of the Festival in Cannes in 2008 as well as the European Award for best film. It comes as no surprise that it wasn`t considered for the Oscars as best foreign picture because this film is way too dark for the Academy`s taste (or perhaps they have members of the Comorra on the inside, they are everywhere, just kidding).

http://estebueno10.blogspot.com/