Hey, still very new here. This is my first post on this subreddit (not sure which flair should I choose either so I leave it blank), hope it gives useful opinions to you and get some feedback in return.
I've just finished watching The Hand of God, and very surprised there's not much discussion here, by the research, the latest post about the director Paolo Sorrentino was from several years ago, which was a short discourse around the greatness of his 2014 Oscar Best Foreign Film winner The Great Beauty. The Hand of God, his new film, having been on Netflix since December, receives little spotlight here, I wonder why.
Recently I rewatched The Great Beauty, amazed by how coherently Sorrentino threads extravagance, emptiness and inherent sorrow of life together, and also by the transcendental and mysterious atmosphere his stylistic shots create: often moving in a way silent eyes do when observing a city, sometimes downwards and sometimes upwards. It's like a visual tourist.
He returns from Rome to Naples, his hometown, to make The Hand of God. Obviously it's somewhat biographical as opposed to The Great Beauty's self-conflicted sarcasm. However, just as The Great Beauty supposedly spawned from La Dolce Vita, the new one has its roots in Amarcord, another Fellini's classic. In a way this observation generalize what the movie does right: the merriment echoing in the hometown's memory, the sexual awakening and coming-of-age pain as the adornment.
Nevertheless, Sorrentino maintains his own style, trying to piece discreet moments of life to form a bigger picture of what his Naples was like. I like his casting, especially Filippo Scotti as his hero Fabietto, a sensitive, reticent, melancholy teenage boy who no doubt has a lot of dirty thoughts in mind but never explicitly exposes them or secretly converts them into philosophical struggle. The film captures the truest and purest form of teenage sexuality and lays it out as an ode to the past and the memorable without even for one second tapping into the territory of excessive male gazing or female objectification.
I also like the way he treats nostalgia and indicates the reason why one has to step out of his beloved hometown for once in their life. The famous director in Naples in the film asked Fabietto, Naples has a lot of stories to tell, why do you have to go to Rome? Then the camera sweeps the seaside, presenting us the illuminated beauty of Naples in the night. Sometimes our hometowns have lovely people an
... keep reading on reddit โกThis is my first time posting here but I couldnโt find any mention of it in this sub which surprised me I must say, so I had to spread the word! Maybe itโs also because Iโm based in Europe, Austria to be specific so not sure if other parts of the world are able to watch it. It was Italyโs entry to the Oscarโs as well.
In case you havenโt seen anything by Paolo Sorrentino, currently one of if not the best, most celebrated Italian director (โThe Big Beautyโ and โThe Young Popeโ just to name his two more recent productions) please do yourselves a favor; this one had me glued to the screen for the whole 2 hours.
Itโs set in 1980โs Naples and is apparently loosely autobiographical. Itโs the story of Fabietto Schisa, a teenage boy and his family who is struck by tragedy and tries to find some meaning to his life after the accident through various encounters with very original characters.
Usually Iโm not necessarily one for dramas but somehow Sorrentinosโ movies get to me. It has breathtaking scenery and camera work, an impeccably authentic cast, very poetic and elegant but never to the point of being ridiculous and even very funny at times, I had some good laughs in between! Especially if you know Italian, although I do and still had to watch with subtitles.
Surely one of the three top movies Iโve seen the past year. Love to hear your thoughts about it!
Edit: as some of you correctly pointed out, โThe Two Popesโ is not by Sorrentino, โThe Young Popeโ series is, my bad!
First of all, it's the first movie by Sorrentino that I ever watched and I pretty much enjoyed it. Some parts were a bit weird, but the cinematography is great and I did like the story.
Now, I've got a question about Aunt Patrizia>!whom we see in the very beginning of the film. She gets in the car with a shady fella who takes her to "the Little Monk" to heal her fertility issues. !<
>!Am I right to understand that, given Patrizia's troubled mind and probable episodes of delirium, she actually went to "turn tricks", i.e. engaged in prostitution in that scene? Because later in the movie when Fabietto and his friend go to an island for fun, they meet an escort guy with a Saudi man who looks exactly like that Little Monk?!<
Hello! I've been a fan of Sorrentino ever since I saw La Grande Bellezza in theaters years ago. However, over the years I've seen on many comment sections a lot of different opinions about him from Italy. I'm interested to know what kind of a reputation he has in his native country, since his body of work seems, at least to a foreigner such as myself (Finnish), very quintessentially Italian.
So, a couple of questions: Is he overall very well known by Italians themselves? Are his films popular? Is there a general consensus about him either in the media or by the general public, or does it vary from person to person? Does there exist any national pride of his success?
In Finland, probably our most renowned film director (at least internationally) is Aki Kaurismรคki. But many non-cinephile Finns don't understand or enjoy his films, even though they are often critically acclaimed. Is there such a divide towards Sorrentino?
Sorry for the barrage of questions, and thanks in advance for any answers! If someone has already asked this I'd like a link to the thread, I could not find one myself. Grazie!
Been searching all over the net, but didn't find it. It's not streaming on Mubi too :(
The format of rich, flawed privileged folks and staff at a luxury resort was used by Thomas Mann. In that case, they all had TB and were struggling with relationships, mortality and sex. In "Youth" the issues are mainly aging/mortality/loss of power, sex and art. In "The White Lotus" the issues are mainly white privilege, sex roles, and, for one character, aging and death.
There are some similar scenes in Youth and The White Lotus (I'll have to re-read Magic Mountain which takes place at the same Swiss resort used in the filming of Youth). Two come to mind:
(1) In Youth, the Jane Fonda character unwittingly causes the demise of the Harvey Keitel character and is distraught when she learns of it. Similar to Paula and Kai.
(2) In Youth, Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel (two older men) are in a jacuzzi when Ms. Universe walks in naked. Similar to Tanya who gets a poolside striptease from a beautiful gigolo.
In Youth, the young woman played by Rachel Weisz divorces her husband and answers the call to adventure to go rock climbing with a new man. One can only hope that Rachel will do similar in Season 2. Quinn is the character who answers the call to adventure, of course.
