As this vivid autobiographical Neapolitan play reveals, the life of the Italian filmmaker may be attributed to the football player

Last modified on Thursday, December 2, 2021 11.52 EST

Paolo Sorrentino's extravagant personal film in Naples in the 1980s provided us all with the director’s sentimental education during childhood and adulthood — or anyway, he now creatively remembers it — In Naples, everyone signed crazy for SSC's new film in Naples, football legend Diego Maradona. When Maradona scored his handball goal in the 1986 World Cup, we watched the family gathering and cheered in front of TV. A left-wing uncle snarled happily because the imperialist British were deceived.

This is a tribute to Sorrentino’s late parents, who died of carbon monoxide poisoning in a holiday cottage outside the city in 1987. If he didn’t want to watch the Naples game, the 16-year-old Paul himself might have been living there. Home. So maybe Maradona saved his life, but it was a bittersweet rescue. After all, God's hand knocked down his parents and spared him. Newcomer Filippo Scotti plays the 16-year-old Fabietto (that is, Sorrentino himself) in the noisy whirlpool of family members. Toni Servillo plays his father Saverio, and Teresa Saponangelo plays the cute performance of his mother Maria, who likes to play pranks.

Sorrentino has obviously been waiting to be his life. He consciously abandoned some of the style habits that made him different, and instead adopted something simpler and heartfelt, the irony and grotesque itself was more traditional. Of course, Federico Fellini is important (Fabietto's potential actor brother Marchino, played by Marlon Joubert, auditioning for this great man as an additional actor), maybe Sorrentino hopes this movie will become his Amarcord.

The Hand of God was coldly criticized during the film festival tour, saying it was quite indulgent and lewd, just like Fellini’s own late film, where people of all ages are here to fascinate Fabito’s but troubled aunt Patricia (Luisa Ranieri) carried out some theft, who likes to sunbathe naked. (Actually, compared with Sorrentino’s previous movie "Youth", the degree of objectivity here is lower. This movie allows us to see Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel enjoying themselves in Miss Universe, and They are all in the hot tub.)

But if you don’t marvel at the vitality, vibrancy and vivid immediacy of this film, it would be too slow: Sorrentino is a filmmaker who is always on the move and on the offensive. Fabietto witnessed a cigarette smuggler in the Gulf of Naples driving a speedboat away from the police launching a chase: this is the rogue Armando played by Biagio Manna. Then Fabietto became friends with him at a fantastic speed, took an adventure with him, and finally went to the prison to visit Armando: all this happened very easily. There is also the relationship between Fabietto's mother and their arrogant, elderly neighbor Baronessa (Betty Pedrazzi), who eventually invited the virgin Fabietto into her apartment, leading him to the next stage of life.

As with all autobiographical movies, part of the fun is wondering what the truth is. How did the death of Sorrentino's parents affect his filmmaking? Until now, are all his angular styles and Jonson's ironic twists to escape that terrible disaster? maybe. Fabito said frankly: "I want an imaginary life, just like my previous life." He wanted to find the mythical happiness that was deprived of the death of his parents in film production, and some bitterness. It's the discovery that movies don't work like that, and life isn't like that. The childhood life he imagined was carefree; as an adult, it included understanding pain.

"Hands of God" will be shown in theaters from December 3rd, and on Netflix from December 15th.