• Post category:Movies
  • Post last modified:March 8, 2022

The Hand of God

Filippo Scotti. Photo: Netflix

With this nostalgic look back at his own upbringing in Naples, Paolo Sorrentino timed the story with Diego Maradona’s arrival in 1986 and what that meant for the entire city. This isn’t a film about soccer, but much like Naples gained confidence thanks to Maradona’s success, it was a time of change also for a teenage boy. The director paints a moving and honest portrait of his parents, but focus lies on 17-year-old Fabietto and what happens to his boisterous family. Teenage hormones and the dream of a life in movies are attractively combined with Mediterranean locations and nods to predecessors like Fellini.

2021-Italy. 130 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by Lorenzo Mieli, Paolo Sorrentino. Written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino. Cinematography: Daria D’Antonio. Cast: Filippo Scotti (Fabietto Schisa), Toni Servillo (Saverio Schisa), Teresa Saponangelo (Maria Schisa), Luisa Ranieri, Massimiliano Gallo, Renato Carpentieri.

Trivia: Original title: É stata la mano di Dio.

Venice: Grand Jury Prize.

Last word: “The hardest thing to say for me when I was younger … because it looks cruel, but the truth is for me every loss contains an idea of a future. This is something that’s apparently unacceptable for a human being because when you have a big loss you say ok there is no future. One thing that’s assured is that if I didn’t have that in my life, I’d never become a filmmaker. It was completely impossible for me to become a filmmaker without this loss.” (Sorrentino, Indiewire)

 

IMDb

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