"Vide Napoli e Mori"

'See Napoli and die' - Goethe. Following the weekend's film review (previous post), these are some photos I took during a couple of days in Naples during the summer, wandering about the Spaccanapoli district in the inner city. One eye over my shoulder at all times.






Rubbish, dust, traffic, constant hum, cobbles, scooters, u-turns, lights, horns, revs, rumbles, cat calls, card games, car crashes, echoes, junkshops, pizza, beer in plastic cups, shady characters, tight alleyways, arches, dead ends, washing lines, street urchins, neon grottos, the Virgin Mary, Maradona, Mastiff Ultras, graffiti, fly posters, Vota!, people, more people, anarchy, lawlessness, life. Forza Napoli.

Gomorrah

I went to see Gomorrah this weekend, my first visit to the new Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield.



Gomorrah exposes the breadth of Camorra gang feuds in the Campania region of southern Italy. It is a film that holds a knife to your throat and presses a gun into your back for the duration: a bleak portrait of life for those in the sprawling Neapolitan suburbs where escape from criminal rackets and the bloody reality of life is not an option. "[Director, Matteo Garrone's] film is populated by characters who neither rise nor fall, remaining instead in the same patch of dirt for generations, however many bodies pile up, or bags of heroin get sold."

The film is based on the controversial expose by Roberto Saviano, who is now under police protection in Italy following the novel's success. "As a young man, Saviano's father, a doctor, was savagely beaten by members of the Camorra for saving the life of a man they'd shot. Saviano Jr waited decades to exact an elegant revenge, but it was worth it. He infiltrated the mafia-like crime organisation and in May 2006 exposed their workings to the world." (Quotes from Ellen E Jones' Gomorrah article 'Into the Darkness')