AfterThe Hand of God, Paolo Sorrentino returns to Naples with his latest filmParthenope, presented in competition at the Cannes festival. Designed as a river film that goes from the birth of the beautiful Parthenope in the 1950s to its old days, the film gravitates around the Neapolitan islands. A tribute to youth and fleeting summer loves, the film has stolen us from its swandy side and its swanky sponcives.
And to say it was the city of my first love!
Sorrrentino chose the name Parthenope for his heroine with magnetic beauty. The myth of the Mermaid and the evanescent figure of Parthenope are inseparable from the city with 500 domes. Fruited by many variations, this famous episode of Homer's Odyssey refers to the sailors who had to clog their wax ears and tie to the mast of their own ship to resist the song of the divine creature. Humilie, she committed suicide with her two sisters and would have failed on the shores of Naples. It is said that his tomb would now be buried in Caponapolis or San Giovanni Maggiore according to the selected versions. It is this second reading that was adopted by Sorrentino that will decline this wandering until its final (as heretical as agreed) in the famous basilica.
ParthenopeThis is the story of a young woman with insolent beauty and unspeakable desires. «Desire is mystery, sex its burial» Does she throw at one of her pretenders who have been driven away? Throughout the film, we see ephemeral flirts and romances that never have the time to start or succeed. It is a constant missed act but without regret. Player, Parthenope explores her desires through the margins. She never really lets herself go the way we keep blaming her. Like the marine creature of Greek mythology, the one born in the sea is carried by the waves and random current of life. At the same time, she plays with men without ever fully enjoying her ephemeral relationships. As animated by Italian melancholy, the young woman exchanges with an alcoholic poet, tests her seduction with her childhood friend and flirts with the borders of transgression with her own brother.
Making love to Italian
Rather than choosing a classic narrative, Sorrentino preferred to offer us epiphanies of relationships where both sexes seem systematically separated as if any carnal union was impossible. Driven by dialogues that are intended to be poetic on the paper, the ensemble disappoints by its outdated side and, let's say, frankly snobe, starting with these gruesome exchanges, coated with a literary varnish supposed to entice the spectator. Parthenope is the archetype of the fatal woman of the last century: a person who speaks little but caricatureally distributed. Don't look for a trace of mortal life, it would alter the myth of the mermaid. MoreoverParthenopeis a permanent fashion show that reminds us that we are facing a productionSaint Laurent. At each stage, a new gala outfit that should delight fashion lovers and blow others.
By multiplying the clichés and reflections on the banality of life, Sorrentino locks his characters in a crude narrative. This desire always suspended makes so smile it seems from another age. It recognizes the good old tropes of a pseudo erotic variation of the New Wave. Behind the camera, Sorrentino reveals his fascination for beautiful women and his concern for time that goes tirelessly. «I wouldn't want to steal a minute from your youth» Let go of the poet ravaged by the dread of alcohol. TheParthenopeThe crisis of the 50s flourishes.
If the idea of departure is not uninteresting, it is his exploration that questions. This was wearing an unreachable woman and at the same time eternally dissatisfied lacks the check. A student in the social sciences and humanities, Parthenope systematically obtained the highest grade, without effort. And yet until the end of the film, she will constantly ask her mentor what anthropology is. It is the candid intelligence that was readily lent to the female characters of old Italian films.
This recurring issue tireds by its big hooves, like the rest of these seduction sequences. As required by mythology, Parthenope symbolizes virginity, song and death for Naples, which will escape no one throughout the film. An old man wonders about this radiant woman and yet gives an intransitive coloration to the verb enjoy. Enjoy what? Semantic paradox, Parthenope benefits but not object. «Beauty opens doors» Retorts an old man, unable to grasp what animates Parthenope. If it is said of the Parthenopean city and its inhabitants that they are indefinable, it will be regretted that Sorrentino's film is so overrated, unable to give way to sincere emotions. Wasn't he able to write a female character rooted in more contemporary standards rather than to reproduce the seen and revised pattern of the indomitable mermaid?
Extract fromParthenope
[...] feminist armoured humor about sex workers. In his latest feature film Parthenope, Sorrentino treated a woman with magnetic beauty and pushed back the [...]