The days associated with youth are the memories of many people's lives. Some people write it in a diary, some people write it in a novel, some people sing it as notes, some people make a movie to share with the audience...
Nominated for this year's Academy Award for Best International Film, "The Hand of God" tells the memories of Italian director Paolo Sorrentino's youth: the painful youth of a Maradona fan over half a hundred years old.
Painful youth associated with Maradona
Directed and written by Paolo Sorrentino and starring Filippo Scotti and Tony Severo, Hand of God tells the story of the youth of Fabito, a teenage boy in Naples, Italy, in the 1980s.
Because the story and hobbies of the protagonist Fabitteau are very similar to the personal experiences and hobbies of director Paul Sorrentino, the film is considered to be An autobiographical film by Paul Sorrentino, and the director himself never denies this.
Born on May 31, 1970 in Naples, Italy, the 51-year-old Paulo Sorrentino began his directing career in 1994 and is one of the best Mesozoic directors in Italy in the past decade or so, known for his exquisite visual style and distinctive film language, and is regarded by many fans as Fellini's successor.
Fans are most familiar with 2013's "City of Beauty" directed by Paul Sorrentino, which won the European Film Award for Best Director, the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
This time, "The Hand of God", another masterpiece released by Sorrentino after several years of dormancy, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 78th Venice Film Festival Silver Lion Awards last September, was launched on Netflix on December 15 last year, and was nominated for the 94th Academy Award for Best International Film in February this year.
The title of "The Hand of God" is derived from the famous saying of the late "ball king" Maradona after scoring a goal with a handball in England at the 1986 World Cup. Maradona is the idol of the film's protagonist, Fabito.
Maradona occupies a very important part of Fabito's youthful memories, and even if he survived a gas leak that led to the death of his parents, maradona is believed to have saved him.
In real life, director Sorrentino himself thanked Maradona for his "life-saving grace" at the 86th Academy Awards in March 2014.
In the film, the brother asks Fabito: "If you had to choose between Maradona coming to Napoli and you sleeping with Aunt Patricia, which would you choose?" Fabito did not hesitate to choose the former.
Unfortunately, "The Hand of God" has not yet been filmed, and Maradona passed away on November 25, 2020. Director Sorrentino never had a chance to let his idol see the film.
Sexual fantasies brought by Aunt Patricia
Aunt Patricia, in his brother's mouth, is another important figure in Fabito's youthful memories, a sexy woman who brought him sexual enlightenment and sexual fantasies.
"The Hand of God" begins with Aunt Patricia returning home late because she was taken to see the "little monk", and was suspected and beaten by her husband, and Fabito's parents took him to her aunt's house to persuade her. Fabito saw Aunt Patricia, whose eyes were red and swollen and her nostrils bleeding, sitting on the edge of the bed, the shoulder straps of her underwear suddenly slipping off, revealing her full breasts, and he had both deep sympathy for her and the hormonal surge of adolescence.
In the film, Fabito's family, friends and relatives and neighbors take a boat to relax by the sea, and the maverick and sexy Aunt Patricia lies naked on the board of the boat not far away. The adults instruct Fabito to send something to his sister-in-law, and Fabito looks at her seductive carcass, both shy and full of sexual fantasies.
As a private autobiographical film, director Sorrentino is very brave and honest in telling this youth story, Fabito has both painful memories of the accidental death of his parents, sexual fantasies about Aunt Patricia, and the privacy of being lured by the old widow of the landlord to complete the coming-of-age ceremony.
After the pain and confusion, the movie is redemption
The landlord old widow seduced the teenager Fabito, not out of malice, but to see him lose his parents after being very painful and confused, hoping that he could get out of the shadow of life as soon as possible and find a girl of the same age to love.
Fabito fell in love with the girl Julia and went to the theater every day to see her perform. He also made a friend, and the two chatted and fought together, but none of this completely opened his painful knot, until he found that filmmaking was the only salvation in his life.
The second half of The Hand of God tells how Fabito got on the path to cinema, and in fact, the artistic presentation of why director Sorrentino himself became a film director.
In the film, Fabito's first contact with film was to accompany his brother to participate in fellini film auditions. The second time he touched the movie, he stumbled into the movie set and saw an actor hanging upside down. The film also borrows the words of director Antonio Capuano to explain:
For the creators of the film, what matters is not suffering, but whether you have the courage to face the suffering head-on, and whether you really have a story to tell about life and the world.
This sentence should also be director Sorrentino's own views and experiences on film creation. The film became the redemption and goal of the protagonist Fabito in the film.
At the end, Fabito leaves Naples for Rome to pursue his film dreams. In this sense, The Hand of God and Cinema Paradiso have similarities.
However, the narrative of "The Hand of God" is too fragmented, there is a sense of flowing water, and the viewing and immersion are not as good as "Cinema Paradiso", nor is it as touching as the latter.