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Napoli in all its loose and bawdy glory

The Hand of God (R16, 130 mins) Directed by Paolo Sorrentino Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★★

The title, of course, refers to Diego Maradona’s infamous first goal at the expense of England at the 1986 football World Cup.

The English still moan about it to this day, conveniently forgetting that just four minutes later, Maradona basically ran around and through their entire team, before smashing home the greatest individual goal in the history of football. Which is, y’know, actually nothing to do with Paolo Sorrentino’s new film. I just like riling up a few friends by reminding them of it.

Sorrentino’s latest is a sprawling, propulsive and deeply personal affair. It sometimes seems to me that a large and chaotic family and neighbourhood life is a huge advantage for a film-maker.

Sorrentino is explicitly paying tribute to Federico Fellini here – and, he is absolutely equal to the challenge – by laying out a loose, bawdy, tragic, relatable and happily amoral yarn set in and around family and community life in Napoli in the 1980s.

Sorrentino (This Must Be The Place, The Great Beauty) is a filmmaker who lives in the spaces at which people meet and become their truest selves. He revels in the arguments, the music, the sex, the loss and the food of life – and that all of those elements might be employed to metaphorically represent each other.

The Hand of God is Sorrentino in sublime form, in love with life – as always – and allowing us a long look under the covers of the world and the people whose stories he carries with him. If you get a chance to see it on a cinema screen, you very much should.

Now screening in select cinemas, The Hand of God will begin streaming on Netflix on December 15.

Entertainment

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2021-12-04T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-12-04T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281990380807547

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