“The Hand of God”: coming of age drama for a teenager who becomes a filmmaker after a family tragedy
“The Hand of God” (“Č stata la mano di Dio, i.e. It was the hand of God”), directed and written by Paolo Sorrentino, is a coming of age story from the 1980s, set in Naples, for the likeable teenager Fabietto Schisa (Filippo Scotti), growing up in an interesting and apparently affluent but troubled family.
He has been somewhat an introvert and wants to study philosophy when he goes to university. (When I was living in the Twin Cities, a philosophy major at Hamline set up the lecture on my book in 1998, and I thought that was interesting.) His brother Marchino (Marlon Joubert) leads him to acting auditions. Fabietto has also sympathized with his aunt Patrizia (Luisa Ranieri) who is brutalized by family after a somewhat religious dispute in the opening, invoking the metaphorical figure “Little Monk”.
There tends to occur homosocial familial intimacy that may look mildly homoerotic. Hs father (Toni Servillo) goads him into getting ready to break the ice by having sexual intercourse with a female (“even a dog”) at least once.
Besides listening to music and ruminating, he follows soccer, especially player Diego Maradona.
When he is watching a soccer game, his parents (at the film midpoint) die as a result of a carbon monoxide accident at home. His adulation of the soccer player, keeping him out of harms way, and make the player “a hand of God” – intervening in a life that had been too sheltered by his parents for a boy who might even bear some comparison to me. (In my own college years, the minister’s son at my church died at a college dorm in North Carolina as a result of a carbon monoxide accident, in the early 1960s.)
The second half of the film shows Fabietto’s own coming to terms with his future, deciding to become a filmmaker, yet being questioned by an alter ego as to what he has to say.
Netflix follows the presentation of the 130 minute film with an 8-minute short where the director explains the parallels to his own life.
The film spurred a legal controversy over the unauthorized use of Maradona’s image (right of publicity), and the answer was that this is not a film about sports per se.
At several film festivals, including London, Venice, and Newport Beach.
Name: “The Hand of God”
Director, writer: Paolo Sorrentino
Released: 2021
Format: 2.39:1
When and how viewed: Netflix subscription, 2021/12/17
Length: 130, Italian (with subtitles)
Rating: R
Companies: The Apartment, Netflix
Link: subscription, Vogue, Readysteadycut
Stars: ****_
(Posted: Friday, December 17, 2021 at 1 PM EST)
Posted onDecember 17, 2021
CategoriesB-Movies, foreign language, gifted kids, period drama, philosophy, psychological growth, screenwriting