For this new study, we decided to write about one of the most important Italian directors on the international scene: Matteo Garrone. We do not know why, but Garrone has always spoken little. Perhaps crushed by the media weight (not the talent) of Sorrentino or perhaps because we Italians have always been very good at understanding our talent late. Recently Dogman has been selected among the Italian films to compete for the Oscar for the best foreign film.
This gives us the opportunity to make a quick summary of his filmography and his poetics.
The Garronian cinema is unique. At the center of his interest is the human soul, always unveiled slowly focusing on the gestures and expression of the characters. To achieve this, the director performs an incredible pre-production work in order to create human relationships and to interact with the set and the environment.
Garrone loves to leave a lot of space to the actors, often shooting with the handheld camera in order to give a more realistic and documentary touch. In this way, he gives us a way to participate in the action and bring us into the lives of the characters. According to the director, in fact, the cinema has the duty to free itself from the imitation of reality. It goes further, it must proceed to another direction, that of emotions and art.
Terra di mezzo (1996): The first film by Garrone, a set of three shorts depicting the borderline Rome, the immigration side. This semi-documentaristic imprinting will be strongly evident in some of his following works. The first of these shorts, named Silhouette, is a slice of life of a group of Nigerian prostitutes and their clients. The second one, entitled Euglen and Gertian, is the story of some young Albanian workers who are picked up from the street each morning. The third and last short film, Self Service, describes the nighttime experiences of an Egyptian immigrant working in a gas station.
Guests (1998): The Roman director’s second movie, deepens and develops the same themes shown in the second episode of Terra di mezzo. It portrays a summer week of two young Albanian cousins hosted in Corrado’s home in the well-off Parioli district. The two are markedly different from each other both in character and in their approach to life. While the first one strives hard to fit into society, the second, unsatisfied by the work imposed rhythms end up wandering around Rome in the company of Pasqualino who is looking for his lost wife. Garrone focuses on the human relationships created between personalities. In contrast to a superficial approach which inevitably ends up labeling traits by stereotyped categories with masterly sensitivity Garrone perfectly manages to differentiate characters.
Roman Summer (2000): The third movie’s plot is based on the lives of 3 characters of the 1970’s Roman theatrical avant-garde. The story is set in a hot summer period while the city is getting ready for the Jubilee. It is precisely in this uncertain time and space that the equally unsure lives of a set designer, his assistant, and an actress cross. Here the main topic is that of existential solitude: each character, locked in his neurosis, drags on anticipating a change; but everything seems to dissolve in the summer heat.
The Embalmer (2002): The director’s fourth film is about the love triangle between a young couple and a dwarf taxidermist. The story is set between the gray Coppola Village on the seaside near Caserta and a fog-wrapped middle-class Cremona. During a visit to the zoo, Peppino (the dwarf embalmer) meets Valerio, an unemployed animal loving the handsome young man. From the beginning the relationship between the two is built on a morbid and ambiguous basis: Peppino appears to have an obsessed passion for the youngster. The plot deepens when Valerio falls in love with Deborah, a simple girl with bourgeois aspirations. In this film, the Roman director shows us two different Italian scenarios, both corrupt. The first is that of wealth, vice and prostitute crowded parties originating from Peppino’s connivance with the Camorra. The second is the mediocre and suffocating bourgeois routine with its hypocritical values and alienating habits. The protagonist, Valerio, remains ingrained a little ingenuously in his suitors’ morbid affection representing the two different but equally horrible sides of the same coin: possessive love.
First Love (2004): Vittorio is a forty-year-old goldsmith living in Vicenza having a morbid passion for thin women. When he meets Sonia, an art-school model, he falls in love with her. A sick love, to the point, that the young beauty decides to submit to Vittorio’s insane desire, reach a 44 kg weight. But there is something in her personality that prevents her from becoming the flesh and blood sculpture Vittorio craves. As in The Embalmer, First Love’s loving remains the frightening synonym of the word possession.
Gomorrah (2008): Gomorrah is the film adaptation of the Saviano novel that marks Matteo Garrone’s international success having won numerous prizes like the Jury Prize in Cannes, several David di Donatello, and 5 European Award. The film is composed of five different stories set between Scampia and Caserta. It follows an entirely new directorial and narrative technique for a “gangster movie”. Garrone is not describing the bosses’ accomplishments and the splendor of their homes. Garrone is willing and succeeds in guiding us inside a reality unknown to many. The film is characterized by the presence of numerous non-professional actors who are often left with ample latitude in the character’s interpretation.
Reality (2012): Its the story of the period during which Luciano, a simple family man, is looking forward to a Big Brother‘s audition response. Garrone describes Luciano’s slow and inexorable frenzy. The director’s purpose is certainly not to produce a social condemnation of trash TV, it is the simple story of an ordinary man’s delirium, delusion, and disjuncture from reality. The film starts and ends with an almost fairytale-like aerial take, but while the initial half may be cheerful and sometimes comical, the second part turns tragic and violent. The reality, thanks to its simplicity and ferocity, has won the director numerous prizes including Cannes’ Jury Grand Prix.
Tale of Tales (2015): With this film Garrone goes back to his roots as a painter, shrinking dialogues as much as possible in favor of a prevalent narrative photography. Also, the Tale of Tales has a plot developing in three different stories taken from Basile’s seventeenth century the “Cunto de li cunti“. The flea, the deer and the old flayed. The three tales, though written almost 4 centuries ago, are decidedly contemporary with Garrone choosing to report the stories with a particular emphasis on the female’s point of view of her problems at the different stages of her life.
Dogman (2018): Garrone’s latest work may be seen as a return to the embalmer and first love period, where from a true story, the director focuses on the interactions between the characters by concentrating on empathy. And Dogman is the perfect example to such an extent. The film is based on the Canaro della Magliana brutal murder story which upset Italy in the 80s. This event was notable as one of the most heinous episodes ever seen in the beautiful country. Garrone, however, will not to dwell on the most gruesome details, he’ll portray a humanity cross-section of hardly seen in other movies. The film presented at Cannes earned Marcello Fonte (the amazing protagonist) the best actor award. But the festival stage is not over yet for Dogman and we hope to see it in the list of films competing at the next Academy Awards.
We know that Matteo Garrone has other movies in mind, first of all, a Pinocchio who will see Benigni in Geppetto’s role. There is still little information, but the casting has already started. We’re anxiously waiting.
