“The Hand of God” puts Sorrentino in the footsteps of Maradona

Paolo Sorrentino explores his childhood in The Hand of God, available on Netflix this Wednesday. The director of Il Divo and La Grande Bellezza is more tender than usual. “I am 50 years old,” he confides to 20 Minutes, “the age when you look more behind you than in front of you. I wanted to show my children how I became the way I am: infantile and irascible. “

We discover the life of a teenager (the excellent beginner Filippo Scotti, awarded in Venice where the film also received the Grand Prix) in a loving and eccentric entourage. The father, played by Toni Servillo, the filmmaker’s favorite actor, dominates his little world with jovial tenderness and irresistible seduction in the Naples of the 1980s.

Between reality and fiction

The title evokes the goal marked by the hand by the legend of football Maradona, of which the hero is a fan and which will have a capital importance in his life. “This goal was a mixture of error and luck that stunned everyone. This corresponds well to my definition of cinema, ”admits the director. Terrible drama and moments of frank laughter marked his youth. He was surrounded by extraordinary personalities who certainly sharpened his creative sense. “The Hand of God is my most intimate film, the one in which I indulge the most, it was painful and funny. Laughter helped me make the film because I was talking about a past that still touches me. I was surprised by the precision of my memories. “

Paolo Sorrentino shares them by multiplying the impressive scenes including a death sequence (the details of which will be kept silent) which breaks the heart of the spectator. “Some things are true, others fictitious, I refuse to reveal which ones,” he said. I would just say that making a film means that we have to make arrangements with reality. The truth is not cinematographic. The Hand of God is pure cinema.

“I did what I could and I did not do so badly”, legendary declaration of Maradona, opens the film. “I can say the same about my filmography,” admits Paolo Sorrentino. The Hand of God confirms that he did better than well: this light and serious film is as miraculous as the goal which gave it its title.