Italian neorealism season - Gomorrah

These "Seasons" effectively constitute an excuse for me watch/rewatch then write about a series of films, connected by a particular genre, movement, era, theme, director or actor (anything really). I'm going to start off with everybody's favourite cinematic movement: Italian neorealsim.

Although Matteo Garrone's gritty adaptation of Roberto Saviano's account of organised neapolitan crime comes about 60 years after the movement was in full swing, there is no denying its place as a neorealist film. Indeed, one can see the influence of neorealism throughout this film from the casting of non-actors in some roles to the steadfast, unforgiving gaze of Garrone's camera. In Gomorrah, Garrone unpacks the plot through a collection of interlocking stories; via mob middlemen, aspiring teenage gangsters, and government officials, he guides us, with brutal rigour, through the inner workings of a social housing block, detailing the hardships subjected on its inhabitants and the pervasive influence of the mob. So just to be clear, with Gomorrah, Garrone has made something relentlessly grim: a grungy tale of economic deprivation and systemic corruption, devoid of any of the romanticism of American gangster classics such as The Godfather or GoodFellas, where the most positive emotion I felt towards any of the characters was tragic pity.  Probably not for the faint hearted.