{"id":28896,"date":"2025-08-27T19:35:35","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T19:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/?p=28896"},"modified":"2025-12-29T20:29:01","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T20:29:01","slug":"la-grazia-paolo-sorrentinos-quiet-reckoning-with-power-doubt-and-the-burden-of-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/2025\/08\/27\/la-grazia-paolo-sorrentinos-quiet-reckoning-with-power-doubt-and-the-burden-of-grace\/","title":{"rendered":"La Grazia: Paolo Sorrentino\u2019s Quiet Reckoning With Power, Doubt, and the Burden of Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"

With La Grazia<\/em><\/strong>, Paolo Sorrentino<\/span><\/span><\/strong> returns to familiar yet fertile ground: the intimate psychology of power, observed not through spectacle but through restraint. Opening the Venice Film Festival<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, the film marks a decisive recalibration after the divisive Parthenope<\/em>. Here, Sorrentino exchanges flamboyance for precision, crafting a somber, ironic meditation on leadership, morality, and the loneliness that accompanies institutional authority.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At the center stands Toni Servillo<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, once again Sorrentino\u2019s essential cinematic counterpart. Servillo plays Mariano De Santis, the President of Italy nearing the end of his mandate\u2014an emblem of integrity admired for his constitutional rigor and emotional opacity. Nicknamed \u201creinforced concrete,\u201d Mariano embodies legality without warmth, order without consolation. Servillo\u2019s performance is a masterclass in subtraction: a flicker of doubt, a restrained smile, a pause heavy with unspoken fear. In his stillness, the film finds its pulse.<\/p>\n

Unlike the operatic excess of The Great Beauty<\/em> or the corrosive satire of Il Divo<\/em>, La Grazia<\/em> unfolds in muted tones. The Quirinale Palace becomes less a seat of power than a mausoleum of certainty, its corridors echoing with unresolved questions. Mariano is confronted with decisions that refuse moral clarity: pardons involving mercy and violence, and a proposed euthanasia law that pits legal responsibility against human suffering. Sorrentino refuses easy answers, allowing the dilemmas to linger\u2014much like the president himself, paralysed by conscience and faith.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Toni Servillo, Anna Ferzetti and Paolo Sorrentino at the ‘La Grazia’ premiere in Venice<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yet politics is only the film\u2019s outer shell. Beneath it lies an intensely personal anguish. Mariano is haunted by the suspicion that his late wife once betrayed him\u2014an unknowable truth that undermines his lifelong devotion to facts and statutes. The irony is devastating: a man who built his life on legal certainty is undone by emotional ambiguity. This private torment, rendered with dry humor and aching melancholy, gives La Grazia<\/em> its quiet force.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Visually, the film is elegant and austere, favoring composed interiors and controlled movement. Moments of surreal tenderness puncture the formality\u2014a ceremonial reception disrupted by rain and wind, a sudden burst of song among veterans\u2014images that crystallize Sorrentino\u2019s view of power as both absurd and fragile. Music, contemporary and anachronistic, slips in like a guilty pleasure, hinting at a vitality Mariano has long suppressed.<\/p>\n

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Courtesy of Venice Film Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ultimately, La Grazia<\/em> is not a portrait of political failure but of existential fatigue. It asks what remains when authority recedes and identity dissolves. In returning to Servillo, Sorrentino reconnects with a cinematic language rooted in irony, compassion, and doubt. The result is a film of measured beauty\u2014less intoxicating than his earlier triumphs, perhaps, but richer in reflection. It is a work that trusts silence, embraces uncertainty, and finds, within restraint itself, a form of grace.<\/p>\n

La Grazia<\/em> premiered in Competition at the Venice Film Festival.<\/p>\n

By Michel Riet – Venice 2025<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With La Grazia, Paolo Sorrentino returns to familiar yet fertile ground: the intimate psychology of power, observed not through spectacle but through restraint. Opening the Venice Film Festival, the film marks a decisive recalibration after the divisive Parthenope. Here, Sorrentino exchanges flamboyance for precision, crafting a somber, ironic meditation on leadership, morality, and the loneliness<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[21420,15476,21413,21408,21409,21414,21419,21421,2876,5673,5674,3901,21418,3915,6135,21410,1824,21422,21417,223,21415,1744,497,21416],"class_list":{"0":"post-28896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-film-tv","8":"tag-europeancinema","9":"tag-euthanasia","10":"tag-filmcriticism","11":"tag-history-of-naples","12":"tag-il-divo-film","13":"tag-italiancinema","14":"tag-lagrazia","15":"tag-michel_riet","16":"tag-morality","17":"tag-nanamedia","18":"tag-nanamediaorg","19":"tag-paolo-sorrentino","20":"tag-paolosorrentino","21":"tag-president-of-italy","22":"tag-psychology","23":"tag-quirinal-palace","24":"tag-toni-servillo","25":"tag-toni_servillo","26":"tag-toniservillo","27":"tag-truth","28":"tag-venezia82","29":"tag-venice","30":"tag-venice-film-festival","31":"tag-venicefilmfestival"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28896"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28906,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28896\/revisions\/28906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}