zero zero zero (roberto saviano, tr. virginia jewiss)

Zero Zero Zero is an all-embracing account of the cocaine industry as well as being a sort of tragic bildungsroman. The book’s origins are intertwined with the author’s destiny. Having found himself committed to a life of 24h security patrols and restricted freedoms following his first book, Gomorrah, which took on the mafia, Saviano now writes from with a reinforced bubble. His book is in part a quest to understand why this bubble exists, why his life has become this closed, hermetic existence. (In the ‘Thanks’ section, there’s a nod to Salman Rushdie, “who taught me how to be free even when surrounded by seven armed bodyguards”. As the author’s life has become a kind of huis clos, he has less qualms about seeking and exposing the facts behind an industry which he claims makes the world go round. This makes for a rangey read, flitting from Mexico to Italy to Africa to Spain and a hundred other points on the compass which are touched by the narcotics industry, which is essentially the whole world. At times, the writing gets so caught up in the detail that it is hard to follow, but as this is a book which people will come to via the author’s fame, something he is aware of, it represents an invaluable guide to the world’s shadow economy, the one that doesn’t figure on the books, nor will be discussed in summit meetings of the G7, but whose vast mark-ups ensure it is perhaps the most lucrative business in town and undoubtably one of the largest too. Through it all Saviano’s voice emerges as a kind of Cassandra, singing a song he knows no-one wants to listen to, but if he doesn’t sing - who will

Nb - One of the more powerful angles of the book is the way in which Saviano’s own semi-incarceration clearly feeds into his understanding of how people operate in prison or facing the risk of prison. With his own life in constant jeopardy, he can emote more readily than many commentators or writers to the impulses of people living on the edge. One of the most telling chapters in the book is the one where he talks to a drugs mule, explaining the training and execution of this painful process. Of course, the drugs mule is very far down the pecking order, effectively just another victim of the industry, as is, in his own way, the author himself. 

gomorrah (d. matteo garrone, w. saviano, bracucci, chiti, di gregorio, garrone, gaudioso)

Gomorrah is adapted from a book of the same title, written by Roberto Saviano, detailing the activities of the Camorra, one of Italy's still functioning crime syndicates. Saviano, who's only 28, has spent the last two years of his life in hiding. You can imagine one way to make a whole raft of enemies for life is to write a book exposing Mafia activities in Italy, without any sentimental overtones.

Gomorrah interweaves several different storylines to show different aspects of the criminal syndicate, aspects which don't appear to have any connection, as though the heads of the hydra wouldn't recognise one another if they met. It doesn't glamourise the world in any way. Rather, it tries to show how the illegal profits it pursues are part and parcel of the world of business. One section is set in the world of pattern cutting and knock off designer wear (at one point the tailor rather touchingly sees Scarlett Johansen, in another world, wearing one of his creations); another based around a group who bury toxic waste in the countryside. The film also dwells on a large, specific concrete housing estate, following the story of a young kid who gets sucked into the violence of a war between opposing factions. The housing estate makes for an interesting counterpoint to that shown in Import/ Export: once again it's a kind of frontline in the battle between a harmonious affluent Europe and a dangerous, warring underworld, threatening the social fabric. However, as opposed to the estate in Import/ Export, presented as some kind of hell, the houses on Gomorrah's estate are something people personalise and cling to. There's a pet monkey in one house and a remarkable long lens shot of a swimming pool on the roof. This is territory that people are prepared to fight over, and in some cases, to die for.

In its quest for what feels like authenticity, Gomorrah repeatedly underplays the drama, rather than ratcheting it up, as so often the case in mob movies. The stresses that ordinary people, caught up in a war which they know no way of avoiding, are described. The man who delivers the money to families on the estate, who realises the time has come when he needs to start wearing a bullet proof vest, or the tailor who takes his life in his hands when he gives the Chinese factory lessons in pattern-cutting. When the Comorra is your world, you don't get to choose whether you want to play or not. One of the strongest moments comes when the young boy is forced to betray his friend's mother. Up to now, it had been all about dressing up and driving around in cars, playing at being a man: all of a sudden the stakes are brutally altered.

Perhaps the most intriguing storyline is the one that follows two young men who decide they want to be their own bosses. In an early scene, they boast about being 'Tony Montana' from Scarface. In a compelling scene they steal cocaine from a group of African dealers, and later some guns from the Comorra. They possess the kind of insouciant, charismatic criminality which, in another, less honest film, might have seen them go right to the top. However, in Gomorrah, they're just deluding themselves. This is the Mafia like it really is; not like they show it in the movies.