The Hand of God

 

                                     A family outing in “The Hand of God.” Netflix image via IMDB

In 2013 he gave us “The Great Beauty.” He won the best foreign language Oscar for that one. A few years later, in English this time, he directed Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel as they contemplated “Youth” from the other end of their lives while luxuriating in a Swiss health spa.

Paulo Sorrentino is the kind of filmmaker who paints masterpieces.

For this awards season, his holiday gift is “The Hand of God,” an affectionate reverie of his teen years growing up in Naples. Now showing on Netflix, it's a portrait of the artist as a young man, although not until the movie's end does young Fabietto (Filippo Scotti) realize filmmaking is his destiny.

Like Italy's incomparable Federico Fellini, whose spirit is like the hand of God guiding his disciple's artistry, Sorrentino's movies aren't content to just be spectacularly beautiful. They live and breathe. They feel. They ponder what it all means … even if there are no conclusions to reach. 

“The Hand of God” reaches out of the screen to embrace you, then keeps an arm around your shoulder as it introduces you to your new family. True, they all speak Italian, but you recognize them at once – their passions, their ridiculousness, their longings, their laughter.

In place of a more conventional plot, Sorrentino spins vignettes from the photo album of his memory. Some are poignant, some are tragically painful, many are laugh-out-loud funny. The early chapters revolve around Patrizia (Luisa Ranieri), Fabietto's aunt who, despite the chaos in her own life, embodies adolescent nephew fantasies everywhere, regardless of what language they're fantasized in. 

Soccer is an even bigger fantasy for the young man, along with everyone else in the city, especially since legendary Diego Maradona is coming to Naples to play. In one scene, everyone on both sides of the street freezes like a statue, transfixed when they spot the soccer icon stopped in traffic in his BMW.

There are hilarious family outings and gatherings with Signora Gentile, “the meanest woman in Naples” who never takes off her fur coat no matter the temperature as she spouts curses whenever provoked. There are Fabietto's banker father (Toni Servillo) and prankster mother (Teresa Saponangelo), innocently affectionate in one scene, deeply hurting each other in another. There's his sweet, aspiring actor brother Marchino (Marion Joubert).

They are, like all families, messy. But they are good people … this is one of those movies where there are no bad guys – well, one maybe – but instead, just victims of their own delusions, pettiness, lusts or dreams.

For all the warmth he showers on his family, much of the movie's affection is for Naples itself, often shot from across the water in panoramas and tracking shots more wonderful than any CGI effect. It appears as a floating city; many key scenes take place on the water. But Sorrentino and cinematographer Daria D'Antonio bring the same visual magic to capturing the dance of vehicles and pedestrians on city streets, or to turning interiors, each detail perfectly lit, into paintings.

“The Hand of God” falls under the heading of a coming-of-age or loss-of-innocence story, which is shorthand for describing the bumpy ride from childhood to the discovery that life isn't carefree after all.

In one scene, Fabietto accompanies his brother to what turns out to be a casting call for a movie directed by Federico Fellini himself. The waiting room, as you might expect, is an Italian freak show. When Marchino finally appears before the maestro, he is deflated to hear that his face is “conventional.” But he also overhears Fellini being interviewed by a reporter, saying movies are nothing more than diversions from life. When asked why diversions are necessary, Fellini answers, because life is lousy.

Sorrentino's magic is his ability to view events through the prism of memory. The scenes on screen are happening in real time, but they're burnished with wisdom the young Fabi has yet to gain. “The Hand of God” is in Italian, it has subtitles, in some scenes nothing seems to be happening … and yet something amazing happens as you watch it. Young Fabi's discoveries merge with your own at his age. You become him. You realize you not only understand the film's language – you knows it intimately.

Filmmaking is life, and life is filmmaking for Paulo Sorrentino.

And there's nothing lousy about any of it.