The two films today highlight family and occasions in dramatic and original ways. The first is from Italian great Paolo Sorrentino, and is a look back at his own adolescence. While the second is a British black comedy that will surprise, and pull the rug from under your feet.

The Hand of God (Netflix -Italy) - Directed by Paolo Sorrentino (he directed the Oscar winner, The Great Beauty), this new film would be a big event for the cinema cognoscenti. Unfortunately, it’ll probably be one of those status films that Netflix have on rotation, that will be watched by a paltry few. And that would be a great shame. If Sorrentino was known in the past for his excess and stylized films, an heir apparent to Fellini; this one is drastically different, something very personal and introspective for Sorrentino. Inspired by his own teenage years growing up in Naples in the 1980s, it’s at once, a coming of age film, an extended family saga and drama, a comedy that plays on the eccentricities of family members, and an exploration of his wanting to become a filmmaker.

The title refers to Diego Maradona, who was drafted by Napoli during the 1980s. The 16-year-old Fabietto is Sorrentino, and it’s an interesting take on how certain events and occasions impinge on one’s life, and depart as defining moments. The cinematography is stunning and wonderfully employed for a smaller, more personal, world view. And ultimately, it’s the crazy family, their foibles and rich idiosyncrasies that make up the weft and texture of this film. You’ll love how scenes with Fellini, Zeffirelli, Capuano, and other Italian directors are woven into the storyline, to underscore how this calling to direct films became a burning passion of Sorrentino - his own need to be a storyteller on film. This may well be one of the films making the list of Best Foreign Picture in the upcoming film awards season.

Silent Night (Video on Demand) - You would be forgiven for thinking this film to be just one more in the spate of Christmas-related releases of the season. It is, in fact, a black comedy that wants to provide trenchant food for thought. It starts off innocently enough, like a posh, British version of The Big Chill, as we watch a group of friends who used to be together in college, descend upon the country home of Nell (Keira Knightley) and Simon (Matthew Goode). We’re even supplied an updated version of the ‘usual suspects’ - a bi-racial lesbian couple, the former darling of the class with a rich, but emasculated, husband, the African-British scholar, now doctor, with a much younger trophy girlfriend, and the often foul-mouthed, exasperating children of the couples. But early on, hints that not all is as it seems, proliferate.

When we discover the real reason for this gathering, we have the rug pulled from under us. There’s a Doomsday, end of the world, scenario going on; and this is literally their last Christmas together. As Nell and Simon’s oldest son, Roman Griffin Davis (of Jojo Rabbit), surprisingly has to do a lot of the heavy lifting drama-wise, in the film. It’s not lost on us that ironically, it’s a child who questions and doubts the veracity and sincerity of the Government, as it condemns its citizenry to certain death in the name of less pain. Plus the parallels to what would have happened if the present global pandemic had been even more drastic and catastrophic, cannot be avoided. I’ll actually give this film an A for effort, in trying to offer up something really different, even if it doesn’t succeed all the time. Great casting and some wonderful set pieces, but they don’t save the film from its own confusion.

...