The name Parthenope has a dual meaning when referring to Paolo Sorrentino’s latest movie. On the geographical side, it alludes to the ancient Greek settlement in the part of Naples now known as Pizzofalcone, where traces of the ancient city remain in many ways, including a nod to its original moniker on a street called Via Parthenope. And then there is the meaning of the name that refers to the Greek siren who threw herself into the sea when she couldn’t allure Odysseus with her voice. The place she washed ashore was on an island called Megaride, where the Castel dell’Ovo is currently located. In some sense, the latter myth applies to a woman of such youth and beauty as Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta), who knows, somewhere deep down, that, one day, when she’s older, her beauty will no longer be a “readily available tool” to make men and women alike swoon whenever she passes.
Born in the water (again, that siren allusion) outside of the villa where her parents live, the year is 1950 when Parthenope “emerges.” It is her grandfather (one assumes…though, later on, he and Parthenope have an incestuous kind of dialogue—which isn’t out of the realm of “normality” for this film) who declares her name ought to be Parthenope, because he “knows about these things.” Raimondo (Daniele Rienzo), her older brother, has already been eagerly awaiting his new sibling’s arrival, having spent plenty of time blowing on his mother’s stomach, almost as though he fancies himself an Aeolus type. And maybe he does, for Aeolus, as a Greek god, would have no issue getting incestuous.
Raimondo’s blowing gesture becomes a recurring symbol, of sorts, and one that leads the viewer to believe that he thinks he can control (and destroy) something the way a god can (but no, that turns out to be only beautiful women). In part, the reason for his suicide (in addition to not being able to be with Parthenope) is the realization that nothing can be controlled. It’s all chaos, madness. In short, the very two adjectives that describe Napoli best. And it is his suicide that leads Parthenope to have a real reason to be disaffected. For one of the ongoing “isms” in Parthenope is that youth is always depressed, yet never has any “legitimate” reason to be—won’t comprehend true sadness until they get older, having watched themselves begin to fade away entirely from the person they once saw in the mirror. For those, like Parthenope, who are beautiful (or rather, were once beautiful), this can be an especially bleak revelation.
For Raimondo, the bleak revelation comes much sooner, with everyone around him constantly mentioning how “fragile” he is. Too fragile for this world, and not in possession of the “savage beauty” that Parthenope wields to her benefit—whether she’s “aware of it” or not. Indeed, there comes a moment when John Cheever (Gary Oldman), who also happens to be visiting Capri that summer (which isn’t out of the question since he did spend periods of time living in Italy), asks Parthenope, “Are you aware of the destruction your beauty causes?” It’s a question that has been lobbed at beautiful women for centuries, with straight and gay (Cheever was bi) men alike accusing women of “asking for it,” if you will, when it comes to the havoc that being “hot” can wreak (just look at what happened with Helen of Troy, Marilyn Monroe, Gia Carangi, etc.). And, just like being born into wealth, “lesser” people can tend to grow resentful of such fortunate ones. However, also like being born into wealth, the “good fortune” of beauty is subject to change when one least expects it. That is to say, when they grow old and their beauty can no longer be clung to (try as many a plastic surgery enthusiast might).
As Parthenope progresses, so, too, do the years, with Sorrentino taking us to 1968, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1982 and, finally, 2023 (the year Napoli won the Scudetto after thirty-three years of loss—Maradona being the last to lead the city to victory in 1990 up until that point). And with each one that goes by, Parthenope gets closer, perhaps, to understanding not only the nature of existence (in part, spurred by her anthropology studies at university), but the nature of beauty. The blessing and the curse it poses (again, much like Napoli itself). In many ways, Sorrentino plays up how “busted” everyone else in Naples looks by comparison to Parthenope, particularly during a moment when she walks through a small strada (the signature silhouettes of the o’ panaro used to move “cargo” up and down from a balcony illuminated in blue for a surreal effect) and peers into each mini melodrama going on around her. For that’s what it is to look closely at any given “scene” in Naples—to see an entire epic narrative unfold. Even one as surreal as the “fusion” (read: “merging of bloodlines” a.k.a. sex) that goes on during one of many especially mocking-of-Neapolitan-beliefs moments.
This also includes a rant from an actress named Greta Cool (Luisa Ranieri) about how no one is to blame for Neapolitan misfortune except Neapolitans themselves. To be sure, this invective seems to be Sorrentino getting something off his own chest with regard to how he feels about the town. And, multiple times throughout the film, Parthenope will vacillate between the sentiments of io amo Napoli and io odio Napoli. The push and pull never-ending in a city so simultaneously enchanting and infuriating. Much in the same way that a beautiful girl can be. Enchanting upon first glance, sure, but perhaps infuriating to the one infatuated when they realize their projections can’t live up to the real person when they get close enough.
Raimondo, however, got too close, and it only makes him desire his own sister all the more. Hence, his need to flee Naples. And when Raimondo is asked why he would want to move somewhere cold and gray when he already lives in the most beautiful place in the world, he replies, “It’s impossible to be happy in the most beautiful place in the world.” Anyone who lives in Napoli—in an aesthetic paradise like Napoli and its surrounding environments—can surely relate to the feeling. Paradise can eventually feel like hell. A stifling, inescapable prison. And, in Raimondo’s case, that goes double when considering his unquenchable lust for his sister, yet another indication on Sorrentino’s part of how powerful—and yes, destructive—her beauty is. Which is why her own mother tells Parthenope that Raimondo’s death was her fault. Ah, classic misogyny funneled through a matriarch.
As for the largely mixed reviews about Parthenope, many of them negative, it seems that Napoli can’t always be spoon-fed to outsiders with ease (the way The Hand of God was). What’s more, being Sorrentino’s twelfth film (and the eleventh he’s directed), he appears to be at the stage where he feels, less and less, that something is “owed” to the audience in terms of “universal resonance.” Though, truth be told, he was never much at that stage at all. And while The Hand of God might have been a more straightforward “love letter” to Naples, Parthenope refuses to be as “linear” or “critically appealing.” Refuses still more to be entirely saccharine or rose-colored-glasses-wearing about the indelible milieu. And perhaps Sorrentino’s biggest “fuck you” of all is getting this “Goddess of Naples,” as it were, to be played by an actress from the north.
