Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Paolo Sorrentino
Starring: Celeste Dalla Porta, Gary Oldman, Stefania Sandrelli, Silvio Orlando, Luisa Ranieri, Isabella Ferrari
"You're no tramp but you're no lady
Talkin' that street talk
You're the heart and soul of New York City."
So sang Odyssey on their 1977 disco hit 'Native New Yorker'. The song,
penned by Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell, posited that the spirit of a city could
most be found in the beautiful young women who confidently strut its
sidewalks. With Parthenope, writer/director Paolo Sorrentino attempts to do
something similar for his beloved hometown of Naples. Across several
decades, but tellingly those in which its young protagonist maintains
her youthful looks, Parthenope follows its eponymous lead as she searches for something so
elusive the film itself doesn't seem all too sure of its true
nature.
Played by the strikingly gorgeous newcomer Celeste Dalla Porta, Parthenope (named after the historical name
of Naples) is no tramp, but she's no lady, and she boasts a line in
witty comebacks. Sorrentino portrays her birth in the waters of the
Neapolitan coast of 1950 with all the import of Kubrick detailing the
dawn of man in 2001. This is the dawn of woman, unleashing a siren from the sea who will
seduce and entrance various men across a rather laborious two hours and
15 minutes.
In 1968 we're introduced to the adult Parthenope as she again emerges
from the sea, this time clad in a bikini like a classic Bond girl. The
men of Naples worship her, as does Sorrentino's camera. Rarely has an
actress been put on such a pedestal as the one Sorrentino mounts his
ingenue on. The camera loves Dalla Porta, and the affection is returned,
perhaps a little too much. The starlet, born of the Insta-age, is
clearly more self-aware of the power of her beauty than the uncertain
young woman she's playing, and as is his way, Sorrentino arranges her in
a way that seems unnnatural. Even when lounging by the beach reading a
book, it's clear that Dalla Porta's limbs have been arranged for maximum
aesthetic impact rather than comfort.
One wonders why Sorrentino didn't simply make Dalla Porta the subject
of a coffee table photography book, the format Parthenope often resembles more than a narrative film. Much of Italian
arthouse cinema can be boiled down to aging male filmmakers trying to
recreate the sensation of that moment in their boyhood when they
realised that contrary to playground philosophy, girls weren't in fact
icky. That's what we get once again here, a superficial attempt to
capture the essence of femininity. It's difficult to resist
comparing Parthenope to a bloated perfume commercial, Sorrentino's attempt to sell us
the scent of a woman. He seems to have less interest in who Parthenope
is than how she looks. The film charts her coming of age in 1970s Naples
with the structure of an Emmanuelle movie, our young heroine drifting from one encounter to another,
many of them often surreal in nature, one featuring Gary Oldman as the American writer John Cheever. But Sorrentino's film is
oddly chaste, exposing about as much flesh as Sports Illustrated's
swimsuit issue.
The thing about perfume commercials is that they're intentionally
striking, designed to grab your attention in a brief amount of time.
While Parthenope doesn't hold together as an overall narrative, it does feature
several arresting vignettes, all beautifully captured by
cinematographer Daria D'Antonio, and a sequence in which the son and daughter of
rival mafia clans are forced to procreate on a stage won't be forgotten
too easily. As a tourist commercial for the city of Naples it's an
overwhelming success, Sorrentino choosing to avoid the darker aspects of
1970s Italy, the era known as the "years of lead" for its terrorism and
mob violence, and the piles of uncollected garbage that are synonymous
with Naples are nowhere to be seen. Even when Sorrentino documents his
city's poverty as Parthenope finds herself wandering through a deprived
slum, his camera can't help but patronise the poor.
By the end of the film we know as much about its heroine as we did 20
minutes in. She's beautiful and desired, but a little sad and broken.
Maybe this is an analogy for Naples. If so, it's odd that Sorrentino
would opt for a picture postcard representation of the city he loves
rather than a genuinely heartfelt portrayal of its highs and
lows. Parthenope suggests that Sorrentino is so beguiled by women and Naples that
he doesn't really understand either.
Parthenope is in UK/ROI
cinemas from May 2nd.
