DOGMAN
****
Director: Matteo Garrone
Screenwriters: Ugo Chiti, Matteo Garrone and Massimo Gaudioso
Principal cast:
Marcello Fonte
Edoardo Pesce
Nunzia Schiano
Adamo Dionisi
Gianluca Gobbi
Alida Baldari Calabria
Country: Italy/France
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 103 mins.
Australian release date: 29 August 2019
Previewed at: Palace Verona Cinemas, Sydney, on 26 September 2018.
Matteo Garrone’s latest film, Dogman, is freely inspired by the true story of a murder that took place in Rome in 1988, committed by a guy known as the ‘Dogman of the Magliana’. That violent event made national headlines at the time and it’s now been transferred to the screen in suitably noir-ish form. The film’s bleak atmosphere evokes a sense of foreboding that permeates the community of a coastal Neapolitan suburb (actually filmed in Villagio Coppola, Castel Volturno, 35 km. north-west of Naples, which was built as a seaside resort in the 1960s but is now largely derelict), a place as colourless as the lives of those holed up in the drab concrete tower blocks that surround the desolate space that doubles as the local football ground and a place for walking the neighbourhood dogs.
A small, mild-mannered man, Marcello (Marcello Fonte), owns a dog-grooming business aptly named ‘Dogman’. He has a young daughter, Alida (Alida Baldari Calabria), who he adores and wants to provide for as best he can. To do this, he supplements his income by dealing small amounts of cocaine to the locals. Not surprisingly, he is ripped off and bullied by a thuggish ex-boxer and petty criminal, Simone (Edoardo Pesce), who occasionally forces him to assist in his crimes. The brute makes Marcello help him to break into the jewellery business next door to Marcello’s shop. Needless to say, it all goes badly, Simone not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it’s Marcello who is held responsible for the crime. Although the police, and his neighbours, know who’s really to blame, Marcello refuses to name names. When he returns to the community after serving time, nothing much has changed and Simone is still brutalising the locals. Marcello, though, is not the same man he was and now he’s prepared to stand up to his tormentor.
Fonte delivers an extraordinary performance as a simple soul totally at the mercy of an over-sized bully, but entirely sympathetic to the animals in his care. It’s touching to see him in scenes with the four-legged cast members, revealing a gentle manner that is responded to by the animals. In one particularly tender moment, Marcello returns to the scene of a crime to rescue a trapped dog and Fonte’s performance readily convinces you that his character is a guileless, humble man. With his wide eyes and hang-dog (pardon the pun) expression throughout the drama, it is easy to see why he won the Best Actor Award at Cannes in 2018. Dogman was also Italy’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2019 Academy Awards but was not selected for the final five. Pesce, too, delivers an astonishing performance as an unfeeling knucklehead with complete disregard for his fellow human beings, despite the love of his concerned mother (Nunzia Schiano). This war between good, Marcello, and evil, Simone, sets the tone of the film, which culminates in a viscerally powerful ending. Nicolaj Brüel’s cinematography captures the down-at-heel environment beautifully, if that’s the right adjective for this concrete cancer-ish setting, which seems to infect everyone unfortunate enough to reside there.
As in Garrone’s previous films, Gomorrah (2008) and Reality (2012), both set in Naples, he captures the essence of the Neapolitan ‘modo di essere’ (‘way of being’) in a contemporary and thoroughly realistic manner. It is a harsh viewing experience and one that may make some viewers sink into their seats, overcome by the unforgiving location but, in the words of the director, you leave the cinema fascinated by this story of “a man who, in an attempt to redeem himself after a life of humiliation, deludes himself of having liberated not only himself, but also his own neighbourhood and perhaps even the world.” Dogman is unique viewing.
Screenwriters: Ugo Chiti, Matteo Garrone and Massimo Gaudioso
Principal cast:
Marcello Fonte
Edoardo Pesce
Nunzia Schiano
Adamo Dionisi
Gianluca Gobbi
Alida Baldari Calabria
Country: Italy/France
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 103 mins.
Australian release date: 29 August 2019
Previewed at: Palace Verona Cinemas, Sydney, on 26 September 2018.
Matteo Garrone’s latest film, Dogman, is freely inspired by the true story of a murder that took place in Rome in 1988, committed by a guy known as the ‘Dogman of the Magliana’. That violent event made national headlines at the time and it’s now been transferred to the screen in suitably noir-ish form. The film’s bleak atmosphere evokes a sense of foreboding that permeates the community of a coastal Neapolitan suburb (actually filmed in Villagio Coppola, Castel Volturno, 35 km. north-west of Naples, which was built as a seaside resort in the 1960s but is now largely derelict), a place as colourless as the lives of those holed up in the drab concrete tower blocks that surround the desolate space that doubles as the local football ground and a place for walking the neighbourhood dogs.
A small, mild-mannered man, Marcello (Marcello Fonte), owns a dog-grooming business aptly named ‘Dogman’. He has a young daughter, Alida (Alida Baldari Calabria), who he adores and wants to provide for as best he can. To do this, he supplements his income by dealing small amounts of cocaine to the locals. Not surprisingly, he is ripped off and bullied by a thuggish ex-boxer and petty criminal, Simone (Edoardo Pesce), who occasionally forces him to assist in his crimes. The brute makes Marcello help him to break into the jewellery business next door to Marcello’s shop. Needless to say, it all goes badly, Simone not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it’s Marcello who is held responsible for the crime. Although the police, and his neighbours, know who’s really to blame, Marcello refuses to name names. When he returns to the community after serving time, nothing much has changed and Simone is still brutalising the locals. Marcello, though, is not the same man he was and now he’s prepared to stand up to his tormentor.
Fonte delivers an extraordinary performance as a simple soul totally at the mercy of an over-sized bully, but entirely sympathetic to the animals in his care. It’s touching to see him in scenes with the four-legged cast members, revealing a gentle manner that is responded to by the animals. In one particularly tender moment, Marcello returns to the scene of a crime to rescue a trapped dog and Fonte’s performance readily convinces you that his character is a guileless, humble man. With his wide eyes and hang-dog (pardon the pun) expression throughout the drama, it is easy to see why he won the Best Actor Award at Cannes in 2018. Dogman was also Italy’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2019 Academy Awards but was not selected for the final five. Pesce, too, delivers an astonishing performance as an unfeeling knucklehead with complete disregard for his fellow human beings, despite the love of his concerned mother (Nunzia Schiano). This war between good, Marcello, and evil, Simone, sets the tone of the film, which culminates in a viscerally powerful ending. Nicolaj Brüel’s cinematography captures the down-at-heel environment beautifully, if that’s the right adjective for this concrete cancer-ish setting, which seems to infect everyone unfortunate enough to reside there.
As in Garrone’s previous films, Gomorrah (2008) and Reality (2012), both set in Naples, he captures the essence of the Neapolitan ‘modo di essere’ (‘way of being’) in a contemporary and thoroughly realistic manner. It is a harsh viewing experience and one that may make some viewers sink into their seats, overcome by the unforgiving location but, in the words of the director, you leave the cinema fascinated by this story of “a man who, in an attempt to redeem himself after a life of humiliation, deludes himself of having liberated not only himself, but also his own neighbourhood and perhaps even the world.” Dogman is unique viewing.