‘Parthenope’: the fascination with youth and beauty

Paolo Sorrentino dedicates ‘Parthenope’ to three essential themes in his filmography: youth, beauty and Naples. This time, with a woman, Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta), as a character in which all three things meet and sublimate. Parthenope is called what the Italian city used to be and has the moral superiority of youth and a beauty that no one can escape: everyone turns when she passes by, everyone wants to know what her perfect body and face hide, everyone projects in she a mystery.

The director of ‘The Great Beauty’ (2013) turns into excessive and exultant vignettes several moments in the life of the protagonist, moments in which she deals with self-discovery, desire, death, guilt and, above all, the search for identity when others have attributed one to her, that of a diva ( that’s how they address her), just for being beautiful, young and silent. It is undeniable plastic beauty of “Parthenope”, something essential in Sorrentino’s cinema. The exuberance of the settings, the attractiveness of the characters (whether exquisite or grotesque), the strange and fascinating way of composing the shot, of arranging the characters, of sublimating the everyday in it.

There are moments of indisputable and euphoric beauty in the film. However, Sorrentino’s way of telling the protagonist, many times (not all) from the other’s point of view, at one point becomes unfocused and capricious. “Parthenope” explains very well in its first half hour the absurd fascination of the human being through youth and beauty, and how that enchantment elevates and condemns the protagonist. But, past that point, it is difficult to understand Parthenope’s swings and the mystery that the round is not enough to justify them.