Parthenope – first-look review

Every work of art begins with a ques­tion. With Parthenope, Pao­lo Sor­renti­no asks: What if a woman was hot?

In Neapoli­tan lore, Parthenope — derived from the Greek ​“Parthenos” mean­ing ​“vir­gin” — is a mer­maid or siren whose pas­sions result­ed in the found­ing of Naples. In this film, Parthenope is anoth­er leg­endary beau­ty (played by Celeste Dal­la Por­ta), born in a water birth, in the Bay of Naples. She is the city itself, and the film moves through the decades of her life in a series of myth­ic vignettes which illus­trate ideas about the ache of beau­ty and the fleet­ing­ness of youth; of the insa­tiable yearn­ing of desire, for sex or under­stand­ing; and of the con­tra­dic­tions and crum­bling grandeur of the city, per­son­i­fied in an ear­ly insert shot of a clas­si­cal mar­ble bust miss­ing the low­er half of its face.

Parthenope enjoys her bit­ter­sweet days of pre­ma­ture­ly nos­tal­gic youth on an island vaca­tion with her child­hood play­mate, the besot­ted son of the fam­i­ly maid, and her moody old­er broth­er, with whom she rev­els in a caress­ing and qua­si-inces­tu­ous rela­tion­ship until his sui­cide carves out in her a void that per­sists through­out the rest of her wan­der­ings. Study­ing at the uni­ver­si­ty — L’Università degli Stu­di di Napoli — she starts down the aca­d­e­m­ic track, under the men­tor­ship of a crusty pro­fes­sor who sees the spark of genius in her sad­ness and dis­sat­is­fac­tion, with plen­ti­ful digres­sions: dur­ing a brief act­ing career, she meets a bit­ter and bewigged Sophia Loren man­qué named Gre­ta Cool (she ​“adores anal sex,” it is rumored); she wit­ness­es the union of two Camor­ra fam­i­lies’ son and daugh­ter, con­sum­mat­ed in a base­ment in front of dozens of eager wit­ness­es; she tar­ries a while with the vain and world­ly priest who car­ries out the Mir­a­cle of San Gen­naro, drap­ing her nude body in the church’s cache of jew­els. The action con­tin­ues up to at least one doc­u­men­tary shot of the pub­lic cel­e­bra­tions for SSC Napoli’s 2023 scud­et­to, which Sor­renti­no posits as a beloved but dis­mal city’s return to a van­ished glory.

It’s like pulling teeth to derive either a sto­ry or a the­sis from all these chap­ters, which are alter­nate­ly airy and abstract or osten­ta­tious and obscure. The film could best be likened to one of Fellini’s episod­ic late-peri­od bur­lesques, but played at half speed — it’s out­ra­geous­ly pre­ten­tious, but too dozy and sun-drunk to even read as campy. Gary Old­man shows up in expat linen suits as John Cheev­er, who gives Parthenope some drunk­en-sage advice (“Desire is a mys­tery, and sex its funer­al”) but, in line with the film’s soporif­ic rhythms, I swear you can catch him nod­ding off dur­ing one of the inter­minable paus­es between his line readings.

Parthenope is an hon­ors grad­u­ate in anthro­pol­o­gy with an insa­tiable curios­i­ty about the world, but more observed than observ­er: as played by Dal­la Por­ta, she moves regal­ly and allur­ing­ly, as if aware that every set of eyes in the room is con­stant­ly on her. She remains pas­sive, sphin­x­like and inscrutable — men ask­ing her what she’s think­ing is a refrain through­out the film. Dressed in slinky dis­co dress­es with plung­ing neck­lines, she’s often seen star­ing out at the sea or back at the cam­era, lean­ing back from it teas­ing­ly with a bemused or beatif­ic expres­sion on her face; she wan­ders through tableaux of beau­ti­ful­ly dressed extras while the film’s incred­i­bly lan­guorous tone-poem col­oratu­ra horn sec­tion wash­es over you, or while char­ac­ters speak past each oth­er in weighty but non­sen­si­cal apho­risms. What Sor­renti­no is after isn’t act­ing, it’s pos­ing; it’s not dia­logue, it’s slo­gans; it’s not a nar­ra­tive, it’s a vibe — it’s not a scene, it’s an edi­to­r­i­al shoot for a lux­u­ry brand.

Though this is his sev­enth film at Cannes, and Il Divo won the Jury Prize here in 2008, the film fes­ti­val with which Sor­renti­no is most strong­ly asso­ci­at­ed is Toron­to, where his Bul­gari ad star­ring Anne Hath­away, Zen­daya and a pea­cock plays before every pub­lic screen­ing to iron­ic applause. Though the much longer film, Parthenope hard­ly extracts more sub­stance out of its recur­rent scenes in which a hyp­no­tized cam­era trails a beau­ti­ful woman in glam­orous clothes as she walks dream­i­ly through a vil­la, trail­ing an arm behind or giv­ing a sul­try, wist­ful look over her shoul­der. ​“In the search for won­der, there are no end­ings, only new begin­nings” is a line from the Bul­gari ad; ​“love as a means of sur­vival has been a fail­ure… or maybe not” is a line from Parthenope. It could just eas­i­ly be the oth­er way around.