Told by Matteo Garrone, Marcello’s story was inspired by real-life events, the 1998 “Canaro della Magliana” case infamous for its violence. Garrone creates the events in his own way, changing some features and moving the location from the Roman coastline to the Baia Domizia shoreline in the province of Caserta.
The director describes his film as a contemporary, urban Western, where desolation and degradation dominate the landscape. The background to the entire film is provided by Parco del Saraceno di Pinetamare (a hamlet of Castel Volturno) and the abandoned dock of the so-called Villaggio Coppola. In recent decades, the area was the focus of unregulated real-estate development which transformed it from a dreamy tourist destination to a ghostly place forgotten by time, where all hope seems lost.
Other locations featured are the Mostra d’Oltremare in Naples, which is the setting for a dog show that Marcello attends with his daughter and Rebibbia Prison in Rome where he is held for his part in a robbery.
Told by Matteo Garrone, Marcello’s story was inspired by real-life events, the 1998 “Canaro della Magliana” case infamous for its violence. Garrone creates the events in his own way, changing some features and moving the location from the Roman coastline to the Baia Domizia shoreline in the province of Caserta.
The director describes his film as a contemporary, urban Western, where desolation and degradation dominate the landscape. The background to the entire film is provided by Parco del Saraceno di Pinetamare (a hamlet of Castel Volturno) and the abandoned dock of the so-called Villaggio Coppola. In recent decades, the area was the focus of unregulated real-estate development which transformed it from a dreamy tourist destination to a ghostly place forgotten by time, where all hope seems lost.
Other locations featured are the Mostra d’Oltremare in Naples, which is the setting for a dog show that Marcello attends with his daughter and Rebibbia Prison in Rome where he is held for his part in a robbery.
Marcello is a ‘canaro’, a dog groomer, who lives in a run-down neighbourhood in the Roman suburbs. He dedicates his life to his daughter Alida and his beloved dogs, but his existence is tainted by the business he runs on the side as a drug dealer. When his uneasy relationship with Simone, a former boxer and the neighbourhood thug, becomes unmanageable, Marcello is forced to subscribe to the violence that surrounds him.
