Illustration by Michael DiMilo
Skin Deep: Review of Parthenope
★★★☆☆
By Geoff Carter
The beginning sequences of Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope are nothing short of breathtaking. Set in the beautiful coastline of Posillipo in Naples, Sorrentino’s loving and perfectly framed shots of the Mediterranean coast, the sea, and the quaint streets are suitable for framing. But like framed prints or beautiful postcards, the substance behind this beautiful is—to be generous—enigmatic, or—to be critical—as vacuous as a glossy fashion layout. Yet there are elements of Parthenope that are, if not visually shocking, then fascinating, much in the vein of Sorrentino’s idol, Fellini, who was also fascinated with the city of Naples.
The film is chronologically structured by important phases of the titular character’s life. Parthenope Di Sangro is born in 1950 to a wealthy family in a residential quarter of the city. Her godfather, the comandante Achille Lauro (Alphonso Santagata) witnesses her birth in the ocean waters off the family villa and proclaims that her name should be Parthenope, after the city of Naples, which, according to mythology, was founded by the siren of the same name after she threw herself into the sea after failing to seduce Odysseus. According to the myth, her body washed ashore on the island of Melagride—the present location of Naples.
Eighteen years pass, and Parthenope (Celeste Della Porta) has grown into a strikingly beautiful woman. The initial sequence of this section shows her climbing out of the sea—a scene reminiscent of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. The camera lovingly follows her as she climbs onto the shore, just as Sandrino’s eyes follow her. He is beyond smitten. Parthenope not only possesses physical beauty, she is witty, quick-witted, and brilliant. When the comandante asks her that he would marry her if he were thirty years younger, she retorts that the correct question is whether he would marry her if she were thirty years older.
According to Neoplatonic thought, Venus had two aspects, inspiring physical love and intellectual love in mortals. Parthenope also possesses this duality. Not only does her physical beauty inspire lust in Sandrino (Dario Alto) and even her brother Raimondo (Daniele Rienzo), but her quick wit and intelligence captures the imagination of older men as sophisticated as the Comandante or the novelist John Cheever (Gary Oldman), who she encounters in Capri later in the film.
As youths, Parthenope, Raimondo, and Sandrino lounge about in the sun and surf without much concern about anything but themselves. Parthenope, at least, shows an interest in anthropology. She is an honor student at her school, earning the respect of the strict and irascible professor Marotta (Silvio Orlando) who agrees to guide her through her thesis.
In 1973, the three, bored with their lives of luxury, decide to go to Capri where Parthenope meets Cheever (whose work she admires), but who is hopelessly steeped in sadness and self-pity. He asks her if she knows how disruptive her beauty actually is. Sandrino and Parthenope eventually start a sexual relationship and Raimondo, realizing he can only love his sister, throws himself off a cliff.
The year after, Parthenope returns to Naples and continues her education. Marotta agrees to work with her on her anthropology thesis on the condition that she changes the topic from suicide to the “cultural impact of miracles”. She accepts but puts her work on hold when friends convince to use her beauty and try to become an actress. After meeting with the arrogant diva Greta Cool (Luisa Ranieri), she decides not to use her beauty for gain. At one of Cool’s parties, she meets Roberto (Marlon Joubert) who is affiliated with the local crime syndicate. He takes Parthenope to a public mating between two families in the organization. The child born of this mating will guarantee family unity.
Years later, she agrees to write an article about the miracle of San Gennaro, the liquefaction of blood, Parthenope goes to visit the corrupt Cardinal Teserone (Peppe Lanzetta). He seduces her. During the act, unseen by both, the miracle, the liquefaction occurs. After she returns to Naples, Marotta tells her he is retiring and takes her to see his disabled son, a gargantuan amiable boy bloated with salt and water. Parthenope remarks that he is basically seawater, the embodiment of the ocean. She finds him beautiful as Marotta knew she would. His grinning face, set in a perfectly round head, is as mythic and eternal as the sun.
While the film is—like its titular character—outwardly beautiful, it is aggravatingly cryptic. Some of the elements, like the surreal public sex scene or Marotta’s grotesque son, are nods to Sorrentino’s idol, Fellini, who also had a love-hate relationship with Naples.
Parthenope has mythic qualities but does not tether those elements to any sort of coherent narrative. It drops tantalizing hints about these qualities, as when she is born of and later ascends from the sea, when Cheever comments on the disruptive qualities of beauty, or when the miracle occurs at San Gennaro, but there is no foundational meaning behind these episodes. The viewer is forced to ask who—or what—is Marotta’s son? Why is Parthenope named after one of the sirens in the Odyssey?
The film is beautifully shot, impeccably edited, and well-acted. Its surface beauty is absolutely breathtaking but is not grounded in any sort of reality—which might be the point. Except it’s not. The epic landscape, cinematography, and themes relating to art, desire, and religion seem to be circling a bigger theme, but never get close enough to recognize it.
Della Porta’s portrayal of Parthenope is the glue that holds the film together. She is beautiful and radiates a vibrant intelligence that leaps off the screen, but the mystery behind the character is never clarified. She is sympathetic toward others but is difficult to sympathize with. She seems more than human. Sorrentino has put her on a pedestal, making her so inscrutable—like a goddess—that she is impossible to relate to. Parthenope is also another name for the city of Naples. Whether Sorrentino was perhaps attempting to make his beautiful otherworldly heroine a symbol of this beautiful city and all its contradictions, this trope, like so many others in this film, is a mystery.
Gary Oldman simply shines in his portrayal of John Cheever, achieving the near-impossible—stealing scenes from the ravishing and magnetic Della Porta. As always, Oldman brings unexpected and fascinating dimensions to his characters—and is completely fearless in doing so. He is brilliant.
John Cheever was right. Beauty is disruptive. To pursuit it causes pain, struggle, even war but ultimately ends in disillusionment. The pursuit of the meaning behind the slick superficial beauty of Parthenope is just as enthralling and exciting but is, in the end, its final attainment is just as disappointing.