Outside of the IFFR I saw two memorable festival titles: Gomorrah and Slumdog Millionaire. I did not like Gomorrah and i really don't understand why all the screenings were sold out at the festival. Of course I am not in the position to judge about the reality factor of of Gomorra, but for me it seemed to be just one more movie about the maffia, while the pretentions of that movie were much higher.
Slumdog Millionaire on the other hand was the winner of the KPN audience award. The movies was nice the concept was interesting and as a feel-good-movie there is nothing to dislike about it, but I must say that I understand those who say that the movies is based on stereotypes and overhyped. It would not have been my personal number 1, but I understand why it got it's award.
Slumdog Millionaire (IN 110')
An uneducated Indian from the slums who becomes a national hero by winning millions of rupees in a TV quiz. ‘From rags to raja,’ according to the quizmaster with a superior grin. How did he do it? The film offers four options: he cheated, he was lucky, he's a genius, it's fate. The police are suspicious, and in between the two days in which the live broadcast takes place, Ja is subjected to a hard handed interrogation. In order to explain the right answers to the quiz questions, he describes to the officer his childhood, which we see passing in flashbacks.
As a child, Jamal was inseparable from his brother Salim in a huge violent slum district. Gradually the two brothers start to vie for attention as they grow up, fed by a shared and continual interest in beautiful Latika.
Boyle edited the two periods together beautifully and plays with tilted frames, depth of focus, close-ups and moving camera, thanks to cameraman Anthony Dod Mantle. The scenario refers regularly to Oliver Twist
and is by Simon Beaufoy, based on Vikas Swarup's novel
Q&A. The soundtrack is an encounter between East and West with songs by the English-Sri Lankan artist M.I.A. (
Paper Planes) and a soundtrack by Bollywood master A.R. Rahman.
Gomorrah (IT 135')
Matteo Garrone has added a classic to the Mafia genre with his widely praised Gomorrah. He based his film on the non-fiction bestseller by Roberto Saviano (whose portrait of Mafia leaders necessitates him leading an underground existence) and primarily sketches the rough, unglamorous side of the Mafia. Gomorrah is not a star vehicle with a polished storyline, but a complex whole of crossing plot lines in which many relatively unknown actors and amateurs portray a very charged reality in Neapolitan dialect. The images are overwhelming in their authenticity and misleading beauty. The more these lines come together, the more we see that virtually the whole of social and political life in and around Naples is infiltrated by the Camorra. Corruption, settling up accounts and extortion are commonplace, and the families of imprisoned Mafiosi are maintained by colleagues. The most revealing and convincing thing about this hard-boiled film is the way in which young Neapolitans are recruited and how easily they fall for a Mafia life with its very uncertain future. Garrone allows two of them to get reckless and pay a heavy price. He focuses primarily on the broad foundation of an immense army of 'foot soldiers', filming their home base as one huge unpredictable pigeon coop, or rather a beehive divided rigidly into ranks filled with changing alliances.
