Living or dying was never a choice. It sounds like the opening words of a Stephen King horror novel, or a 90s action movie with Bruce Willis. An almost obvious fatalistic concept that, if associated with the underworld, takes on much deeper and darker meanings. In reality, "There is always the possibility to choose", says the boss of Secondigliano Ciro Di Marzio (Marco D'Amore) to his new paranza, "But then it's impossible to go back"he concludes. He knows it well. He lost everything, first of all he lost his family. He decided not to go back, in fact. He chose the path of "evil" before killing his wife Deborah, charged with the sole fault of not following him in the immoderate ambition that he cultivated inside: to take Naples. Hunger for power that he also paid for with the murder of his daughter Maria Rita, a drama that marked him deeply, taking away all that was dearest to him. Since that time, he has no longer had anyone to protect, no reason to live for. "I'm already dead," he whispers in his usual voice broken by pain. It is perceived by the frowning, suffering, emotional but at the same time cold, arid gaze. Also for this reason he had chosen to give his life to save his friend Genny Savastano, "A brother," he says.
A sort of redemption, a sacrifice due / wanted because "I have nothing more to lose, he explains to those who ask him the reasons for his gesture," instead he still had someone worth living for "(referring to Genny's family). We had last seen Ciro sink into the Gulf of Naples, killed with a point blank shot at the hands of his own "partner" (forced and armed by the betrayed rival Sangue Blu) in one of the most poignant scenes of the whole series. Living or dying was never a choice. Also for Ciro, the Immortal. In the finale of the third season, just as his lifeless body seemed to sink, small air bubbles can be seen coming out of his mouth. As anticipated by the trailer of the stand alone dedicated to him, that sequence of "hope" was not entirely causal. Ciro Di Marzio is still alive. And when you think about it, it could only be otherwise.
The nickname itself, the title of the film, implies it. Resurfaced from the waters with his last strength, he is rescued by a fishing boat and immediately recognized "he's the boss of Secondigliano, what do we do?". The idea of the Camorra oligarchy is to hide it from Genny: "no one should know that you are still here, you have the possibility to change your life", he promises. Don Aniello (Nello Mascia), boss of the "old nobility". It will not be so. One cannot escape from one's destiny. And even in Lithuania, where he has taken refuge, the Camorra will force him to "fight again" for "ideals" which he no longer believes in, which he almost seems to reject by acting like a walking ghost. He will find the motives in the affections of innocent people, especially a single mother who has never lived in the same criminal world as him, but who arouses in him something he has not felt for a long time: compassion. Right in Riga he will find Bruno (Salvatore D'Onofrio), his old mentor and putative father (Giovanni Vastarella, as a young man) never able to really emerge in the Camorra hierarchies and therefore always dissatisfied. Thirty years later Bruno wants to have a second chance, it's his chance, right next to the one he had seen growing up.
It is a way to tell us about Ciro's orphaned past with flashbacks, which remain etched in our memory (in these, interpreted at a young age by the very good Giuseppe Aiello). Once again Ciro will no longer know who to trust, finding himself in the midst of an internal war between the Russian mafia and local crime. “It's not my war,” he recalls. Yet he will have to fight it all the same. “I see a lonely man who doesn't want anything anymore”, they say of him behind his back, “that's why I'm not afraid, because I have nothing more to lose”, he says. And when they point out “I would like to be just like you”, he replies: “I have already lost everything I loved because of me, you can do better”. As a child he was immediately forced to look death in the face, that death which - although wanted and sought - continues to never arrive. Having survived in the rubble of a terrible earthquake, Ciro is still in this world, whether he likes it or not. "The bullet stopped within an inch of his heart," they reveal once he comes out of the coma. That heart that has already drowned several times in pain. Luck or fate? It is not a choice. He is the Immortal. But all mistakes are always paid for, especially in "Gomorra - La Serie". The craving for power has a very high price, like trying to be what one is not by nature. Many have discounted it on their own skin, from "Tonino Spiderman" in the first season to Patrizia in the fourth. Pending the fifth (and, perhaps, last) scheduled for 2020, "The Immortal" (written and directed by Marco D'Amore) it acts as a link with the development of the main trend, arrived at the peak of the catharsis, near the end.
The film partly recalls the events that occurred in the second episode of the third season, always set in Eastern Europe and with similar implications. Now we expect a grand finale (we hope), which certainly could not miss the central figure of Ciro Di Marzio, after all the absolute protagonist of the story. After directing for the first time an episode of the last season - perhaps the most successful - Marco D'Amore confirms himself as a promising director. He cleverly filled the script with that dramatic and noir narrative that works and still holds up well in Gomorrah, without detaching too much from what we have already seen, but completing it. The mood of the spin-off is always the same: shady drug deals between powerful bosses, shootings, executions, explosions, betrayals and twists in profusion (a little less unexpected for those who now know the series by heart). Genny Savastano's advice remains valid also for the protagonists of this film. Never trust anyone. Not even of themselves.
