Paolo Sorrentino has made a career out of creating films with an incredible sense of style, all often in the service of farce taking down the rich elite. In his Oscar-winning The Great Beauty, it was the snobbery of the high art world that came under his microscope, while in his last film Loro, he looked at the allure and corruptive power of greed through examining media tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi. Both of those films and his work on TV with The Young Pope have a larger-than-life atmosphere to their characters and settings, often full of colour, glitz, and ridiculous glamour that drives the hollowness at the centre of the figures he’s examining.
For his latest, The Hand Of God, Sorrentino is making an altogether different film. For one, the subject is himself and his own experiences as a teenager in Naples in the 1980s. It is very much a film of two halves, with the first half coming closer to the sort of boisterous energy fans will be used to from his most recent work. But the second half, beckoned in by a moment of tragedy, sees Sorrentino working in a much more subdued and introspective fashion which sees the filmmaker delivering his most personal and sentimental work to date.
The first half of the film is one that revels in the messiness of family life, as we meet teenaged Fabietto (Filippo Scotti) in the summer of 1984, where rumours of Diego Maradona joining the Napoli football team are rife. The gossiping sparks arguments and debates among his family, a collection of big personalities often at war with each other, never mincing their words when it comes to telling each other exactly how they feel. Moments at a lunch or on a trip out on a boat present this family as both cruel and loving at the same time, with both Fabietto and Sorrentino, often left in awe of their behaviour.
It is sometimes an overwhelming experience in the more energetic first half, as we’re given glimpses into the lives of Fabietto’s parents (Sorrentino regular Toni Servillo and the excellent Teresa Saponangelo), and his Aunts and Uncles (one Aunt whom he has a somewhat inappropriate infatuation for). Fabietto – Sorrentino’s surrogate – is very much trying to establish where he fits in with this family of big and loud personalities. He’s something of a loner, never connecting with any of his fellow football-loving schoolmates. He often spends time with his caring parents and his more confident brother, rarely hanging out with people his own age, despite being obsessed with much of the same things.
That chaotic energy however is soon replaced when tragedy strikes and shakes Fabietto’s world, leaving much of what he knew in ruins. He is thrown down an even lonelier path, and the film’s energy takes on a much more reflective and thoughtful pace, with even the thrill of seeing Maradona play for Napoli becoming something that can only be enjoyed in a past life. The film becomes about Fabietto trying to fill an unimaginable void, moving through a gallery of unexpected role models as he attempts to carve a path and a sense of purpose.
There is a lot of pain and a sense of aching in this latter half, much more so than another coming of age stories of its kind due to the family disaster at its core. To re-examine this pain and moment in his easily makes this Sorrentino’s most personal film, and makes it a very different experience from his recent work. The 80s Naples setting is a beautiful backdrop for this exploration of pain, of an individual trying to find themselves after losing a huge part of who they are, or more accurately who they were, and the young Scotti proves very adept at conveying these complex emotions.
Sorrentino is looking at the time in his life where he had to pick up the pieces of himself and find the track that led him to who he is today. It embraces an initial sense of aimlessness, of exploration with no real goal, before leading to an endnote that provides the sense that everything is about to start coming into focus. In crafting the film as two very distinct halves, Sorrentino creates a clear picture of exactly what it is that has been lost, before going on a journey of trying to find something to fill that void, forging a path during a dark chapter in a young life.
The Hand Of God is a messy affair, but for the most part, that messiness works to its favour. It lets chaos and emotion (both joy and despair) rule its motions, presenting a deeply personal and moving work in the process. The stripped-down aesthetic (at least relative to his previous work) reveals a more raw and sentimental filmmaker keen to rein in his more flamboyant tendencies, all the while maintaining his sense of verve and the rich cinematic textures of his very best works. By looking back, Sorrentino feels like he is welcoming a new chapter in his career, one where he wears his heart more on his sleeve, and it is often captivating to behold.
The Hand Of God is now playing in select cinemas and will debut on Netflix on December 15th, 2021.
The Hand Of God
Summary
Sorrentino’s most personal film is also his most captivating, most personal and sentimental work to date.
