Matteo Garrone – The Dark Side of Italian Cinema

After the success of Matteo Garrone’s last film, Reality, Santa Barbara dedicates 3 nights to one of the most controversial yet admired Italian directors, with a retrospective organized by UCSB Professor Anna Brusutti and co-sponsored by the Carsey-Wolf Center and the Film and Media Studies department.

 

After graduating from art school, Matteo Garrone dedicated several years to the pursuit of an artistic career as a painter. When he turned to directing, his first short film won a prestigious award and his film career took off. Between 2002 and 2012 he directed four films and consolidated his relevance on the international film scene, with stories about survival and alienation. His characters seem to be part of an existentially troubled generation, torn between social obligations and personal obsessions.

 

The Embalmer was presented at Cannes in 2002 and received wide accolades. The story of a relation between a taxidermist with ties to organized crime and his handsome assistant is based on a true event. In The Embalmer, Garrone reveals a profound understanding of how people struggle to relate to each other on an emotional level, but also of the thin line that separates love from obsession. 

 

Garrone follows with First Love (2004), a literary adaptation of Marco Mariolini’s Il Cacciatore di Anoressiche. The dark story of an obsessive relation consolidated his artistic reputation. In Primo Amore, the film released two years after The Embalmer, the filmmaker Matteo Garrone continues to explore obsessive passions and fatal attractions. 

 

Gomorrah is Garrone’s 2008 film and his third international success, this time adapted from a well known and controversial book by Italian writer Roberto Saviano. Gomorrah weaves four stories which highlight the role of the Camorra — a traditional criminal organization in the southern Italian region of Campania – and its presence in the Italian social and political landscape. With this movie, Garrone received the Grand Prize at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.

 

The Embalmer will screen on Thursday, May 9th, 7pm; Primo Amore on Thursday, May 16th, 7pm; Gomorrah on Thursday, May 23rd, 7pm,

All films will screen at the Pollock Theater, UCSB. Tickets are $5.00 each. More info at