A family saga, with its share of twists and turns, earthy characters, thrills of love, and a shimmering aesthetic revisiting Naples as a splendid setting: the latest film by Paolo Sorrentino, God’s hand, available on Netflix from Wednesday, December 15, plunges into the director’s adolescence, marked by a tragedy in the 1980s. Silver Lion (Grand Prix du Jury) at the Venice Film Festival, this drama guarantees a “roller coaster” »Emotional with some brilliant actors (Toni Servillo, Teresa Saponangelo, Filippo Scotti), failing to renew the genre of autobiographical film.
Prolific director, with an uneven career – Youth (2015) and Silvio and the others (2018) disappointed critics – Paolo Sorrentino, 51, is the author of the hit series The Young Pope (2016). In 2014, La Grande Bellezza received the Oscar for best foreign language film, and God’s hand will represent Italy in the same category at the 2022 Oscars. This tenth feature film is undoubtedly his most intimate work.
Fellinian Quotes
Melancholy in his twenties, Fabietto (Filippo Scotti, young Sorrentino’s double) is a dreamy boy, a little withdrawn, in the middle of a restless and endearing family. Her parents seem to love each other (Toni Servillo, Teresa Saponangelo); his brother Marchino, a handsome kid (Marlon Joubert), dreams of becoming an actor, and watches for the day when Fabietto takes action with a girl. In the meantime, Fabietto fantasizes about his aunt Patrizia (Luisa Ranieri), who is presented to us as a femme fatale, slightly disturbed, whose drama is not to be able to have children.
No trace of visual flashes in “The Hand of God”, which ends up appearing as a pale copy of “Fellini Roma”
Fabietto is also a fan of football star Diego Maradona, who is about to join the Neapolitan club, and the player’s memory runs through the story, even giving the film its title – the “hand of God” referring to the goal scored with the fist by Maradona in 1986, during the quarter-final of the World Cup against England.
From solitary wanderings to nocturnal encounters, Fabietto feels irresistibly drawn to the cinema, and God’s hand multiplies the Fellinian quotes, especially during a family meal during which the aunt arrives with her lover, a decaying old man with an earpiece, triggering a burlesque comic – Marchino also passes a casting with Federico Fellini, of whom we can guess ” shadow ‘behind a glass door. But no trace of visual flashes in God’s hand, which ends up appearing as a pale copy of Fellini Roma (1972), a masterpiece also haunted by the memories of the Italian master’s youth. Under Sorrentino’s eye, Naples looks more like a showcase than a monster city.
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