The Crime Horror of Gomorrah
Introspective dread in a lesser-known underworld
Based on the book of the same name, the TV series Gomorrah (2014-2021) etched itself into my mind as one of the most nightmarish depictions of a criminal underworld. It truly feels like living in a circle of hell, only to travel down deeper as the show pushes each character towards oblivion.
Despite my experiences watching many other crime dramas, it struck me how coldly it depicts violence. Many crime shows have a sensationalist relationship to violence. There’s a tendency towards passion in the act. Someone, somewhere, does something stupid, and has to pay the consequences for it. It’s easiest to blend a sense of action movie vengeance and style. In stories like The Godfather, the theme of family is central to the story. Whenever something happens to the Corleone’s, it doesn’t feel like business, it’s personal. As dark as Breaking Bad is, seeing organized crime through the eyes of Walter White makes it easy to empathize with him. He creates a power fantasy that makes it easy to imagine being in his shoes. We’re taken on a journey that’s done so well, an entire segment of the audience will forever vindicate the actions of Walter. One thing Gomorrah doesn’t do, is convince the audience that the people involved are anything other than cold apparatuses of a much bigger machine. It takes place in a culture completely divorced from Americana, creating a novel perspective on how organized crime works in Naples.
With the long history of depicting the Sicilian Mafia (Cosa Nostra) in western media, most westerners don't know about the other major Italian crime organization: The Camorra. Gomorrah follows the fictional participants immersed in the lesser-known, but highly influential organization, notorious enough to be sanctioned by the Obama administration in 2012. The Camorra engages in many of the same rackets as similar organizations. The show’s main focus is on its most profitable racket, drug trafficking. The heart of its operation thrives in the housing projects called the Le Vele di Scampia. It’s an unforgettable location, a monument to brutalist architecture. The show specifically uses the real building known as the Vela Rossa. It’s easy to feel crushed by the oppression of its corridors, and hard to imagine that a life in such a place could be anything other than bleak. It provides the perfect labyrinth for a Camorra operation to hide its activities, with the show depicting members of the gang often enacting the entire pipeline (packing, distribution, and money counting) all next to neighbors that can’t help but be privy to the activity. With so little economic activity in these environments, it’s not difficult to imagine that being a part of it is the only way to put food on the table.
What I enjoy about the show is how painfully unglamorous the depiction of crime is. When characters create a life on top of others’ suffering, the life they create feels hollow. There's a gaudy tackiness that often colors their homes and wardrobes as spoils. The cinematography ensures dark and crushed hues permeate their environments, an added reminder of the inescapable cold heartlessness of the world they live in. The fact that no character is ever safe, that unrestrained horror is around every corner, pushes the viewer into the survival mindset of these characters.
As with other crime dramas, there’s plenty of on-screen death. There's a haunting quality to the way these deaths are handled. The show routinely pivots narrative focus to different characters for each episode. There are moments of humanity that occur in showing the relationships of characters to others, both in and out of the game. What results is a growing empathy with that character. To feel the slightest bit of empathy for a character is to invite inevitable disappointment, and yet it’s a seductive compulsion, like watching a train wreck. When a death comes, it feels like a hammer. Throughout the show, with only a few players who make it to the end, a feeling of gradual loss builds up over time. Each character's death destroyed a part of me. By the end of the show, there's this strong feeling of mournful emptiness that the final players can't help but embody, sharing with the audience an understanding of how senseless the violence really is. Money and power are their gods, but with no room for the people of worship.
The prince of the starting crime family, Gennaro (Salvatore Esposito), start's the show in a position of comfortable privilege, living on the fortune and reputation of his ruthless father, Pietro. To preserve the family, he is forced to develop the evil required to survive. His character is the most tragic in the show. A man who clearly wouldn’t have chosen the life if given a choice. The horror of his journey is watching the enormity of psychological repression he is forced to endure, to make the transition into being a proper boss. The brilliance in Esposito's performance is how there is always a level of underlying pain and discomfort he's in, enhanced with the added touch of constant stimming through the use of his ring to offset discomfort.
So why play the game at all? These characters are often born into it. The environments of their youth offered only a sink or swim response to the game. This is very similar to the depiction of the criminals in The Wire. Living outside of "the game" means living a life of seeming mediocrity in exchange for avoiding the worst of the highs and lows. It also means not being protected when wolves are knocking at the door. When looking at characters like Ciro (Marco D'Amore) and Pietro (Fortunato Cerlino), there is clear appreciation they harbor for the game in the way that they deftly pursue their aims. These are men who are committed to it for life, including all of its horrors. For them, it's the hyper fixation of chess players, willing to sacrifice even their family if it means having more resources to make the next move. The result is an inability to have a relationship with another person without it being influenced by extreme trauma, grief, and abuse. There are no barriers of civilian life safety for their families, no matter how hard they try to keep the other wolves out. When it comes to the bonds between criminals, there’s always deep mutual resentment; fondness is determined by how much a character would rather burn in hell with the other, as opposed to a solitary pit.
The characters of the show never want to admit that they simply want something better for themselves. The level of repression and self-loathing runs deep and colors every action. The unmistakable hole of emotional longing for a better life grows greater with every evil deed, always present, always denied. It’s a deeply human experience and the soul of all of its horror.