MATTEO Garrone’s thoroughly unglamorous film weaves together five stories based around the activities of the Naples mafia, the camorra.

There’s old-before-his-time teen Toto who should be learning a paper round not preparing to be a drug dealer; basically decent Roberto who is hired by a trader in illegally dumped toxic waste; peppery pair Marco and Ciro trying to make their way by stealing coke and guns; veteran money-carrier Ciro who’s a man out of time; and the film’s one wholly sympathetic character, factory tailor Pasquale.

Their stories are laced with casual cruelty, gruesome realities, vicious conclusions and unpredictable changes of pace.

In this world nothing is forever and there’s not much point in relying on anything to stay the same for long.

A lesser film would have been dripping with blood, but while Gomorrah never shies from savagery, the worst events happen out of shot, making the aftermath all the more horrifying.

Without straying into an easy bleakness, Garrone moves the story swiftly and presents the grim environment and frequent violence without judgement, rather as a brutally efficient way of life that everyone accepts.

Showing at Lighthouse, along with short film, Toy (U).