Parthenope movie review: Celeste Dalla Porta starrer is an opulent spectacle about womanhood

Still from the film

Cast: Celeste Dalla Porta, Stefania Sandrelli, Gary Oldman, Silvio Orlando, Daniele Rienzo, Dario Aita, Isabella Ferrari, Luisa Ranieri, Peppe Lanzetta, Marlon Joubert, Silvia Degrandi, Lorenzo Gleijeses, Biagio Izzo, Nello Mascia, Alfonso Santagata
Director-screenwriter: Paolo Sorrentino
Rating: 3/5
Runtime: 136 m

The Oscar-winning Italian director Paolo Sorrentino's ‘Parthenope', is an epic tale that captures the essence of the city of Naples, throughout the latter half of the 20th century, through the life of one woman.

The titular character, Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta), from her birth in the sea through a life marked by love, loss, guilt, and redemption, serves as a source of Naples' mythological identity. The decades spanning narrative chronicles her birth, her youth and the years she spends adrift as a young adult.

Celeste Dalla Porta is beguiling as a woman of stunning beauty that people stop and stare at. She is named after one of the six sirens of Greek mythology. Her beauty is the kind that will open doors and start wars. She is presented here as a carefree seductress who revels in her youth. She also pursues an academic career in anthropology under the tutelage of professor Devoto Marotta (Silvio Orlando). She also encounters her favorite author, the melancholic alcoholic John Cheever (Gary Oldman), who waxes prophetic about her beauty. She forges strange connections and has stray encounters with people who touch her life.

She is introduced to Flora Malva (Isabella Ferrari), an acting teacher and connects with Greta Cool (Luisa Ranieri), a Neapolitan diva and movie sex symbol. Parthenope also witnesses a public ritual - an alliance between two gangs. Parthenope attracts a host of youthful or wealthy suitors. Her brother Raimondo (Daniele Rienzo) harbors a possibly mutual incestuous desire towards her. Her hedonistic lifestyle leads her into a brief affair with her brother's friend Sandrino (Dario Aita), which culminates in Raimondo's premature death.

Sorrentino's film is visually opulent but also aesthetically excessive. His attempt at weaving a modern epic of womanhood is undermined by obsession with form.

Daria D'Antonio, the director of photography creates opulent scenes with mild surrealistic overtones. But the form is so overwhelming that the substance gets shrouded in mystery. It's difficult to make sense of what this film is trying to convey.

‘Parthenope' is an inscrutable enigma, embodies the city of Naples while fantasizing about dreamlike scenarios and celebrating womanhood. It is Sorrentino's ode to his hometown and makes for a opulent spectacle.