DOpe the success achieved in the cinema, Parthenope by Paolo Sorrentino comes out today Netflix. A work that immediately announces itself as A female epic without heroisms, moved by an incessant passion for freedom and for the iridescent soul of Naples. After the international success of It was the hand of God (2021), the Neapolitan director continues his intimate and visionary story. Venturing into a story that crosses decades of life and Neapolitan culture through the gaze of a woman, Parthenope, interpreted with elegance and intensity from the young Celeste from the door.
Sorrentino, now synonymous with a cinema with a refined aesthetics and powerful emotions, makes a film that moves on ambitious soil. A training novel that is also a declaration of love for his city. A journey through the time when Naples becomes more than a simple background, turning into a real character.
Parthenopethe plot
The movie The life of the same protagonist follows, born in Naples in 1950, crossing his experiences from adolescence to adulthood. Daughter of a high-bourgeois family, Parthenope grows between wrong loves, friendships, disappointments and encounters with characters representing the various souls of the city. From crime to culture, from religion to art.
An existential journey that intertwines the path of the protagonist with that of Naples, portrayed in all its beauty and contradiction. The story is not linear. Parthenope It is in fact a sort of visual poem on freedomon desire, on the illusions of youth. Presenting a strong symbolic component and a completely Sorrentinian aesthetic form.
Celeste from the door in “Parthenope”. (Gianni Fiorito)
An enigmatic and fascinating character
From 1950 to the present day, We follow Parthenope as growing, forms, explores the multiple faces of loveof art, religion and society that surrounds it. It is a story that embraces moments of poignant beauty and others of strong symbolic impact, always characterized by the usual attention of the director for the composition of the image and the construction of suggestive atmospheres. To support this journey, a protagonist who illuminates the screen. Celeste from the door, to his first great cinema role, manages to give the complexity of Parthenope with grace and naturalness.
An enigmatic and fascinating character, at times elusive but always magnetic. With his expressive face and his refined scenic presence, he takes a modern and timeless heroin on stage. Able to embody desires, fears and contradictions with an interpretation that, despite its young age, demonstrates a talent destined to grow. His is a debut that does not go unnoticed and that certainly projects her to an interesting career.
The cast, Celeste Dalla Porta, Luisa Ranieri, Isabella Ferrari
Next to her, a cast of well -known faces of Italian cinema. Silvio Orlando interprets devoted Marotta, a professor of anthropology that guides Parthenope in his inner research, while Isabella Ferrari plays the role of the film agent Flora Malva, character with a strong symbolic charge. Luisa Ranieri, who in It was the hand of God he had given one of his most iconic interpretationsreturns with a role that recalls the timeless elegance of the great Italian Dive. Evoking figures like Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida.
Celeste from the door with Daniele Rienzo and Dario Aita. (Gianni Fiorito)
Parthenopethe review and meaning
If Parthenope It is part of the wake of the visionary cinema of Sorrentinowith its stylistic virtuosity and its unmistakable language, it is also a film that risks and experimented, staging a freer and less linear story than usual. The result is a work that has split the criticism and the public. On the one hand there are those who have let themselves overwhelm by their lyricism, on the other, those who have found it less incisive and less inspired than previous works.
Some sequences, such as that of the metaphorical coupling between Naples and the Camorra, are deliberately excessive, in the sign of that Baroque theatricality that has always distinguished the director. Parthenope In fact, there remains a deeply “Sorrentin” film, for better or for worse. In his ability to tell life with powerful images, to build characters destined to remain in memory and to celebrate Naples with an affection that goes beyond the simple cinematographic narrative.
The discussed exclusion from the race for the Oscar
An aspect that made to discuss was the lack of choice of Parthenope as an Italian representative for the Oscar race to the best international film. After the triumph of The great beauty in 2014 and the candidacy of It was the hand of God In 2022, many expected Italy to aim once again on Sorrentino, one of the few Italian directors with a strong recognition in the United States.
The decision to exclude it can be read as a sign of a change in the selection criteria, which would perhaps have privileged works with a more authorial cut (as it is, for example, Vermilion by Maura Delpero). Or like the fear that Parthenope, With its less conventional structure, it could be less immediate for the Academy than the previous films of the Neapolitan director.
The fact remains that it is a personal and ambitious work, capable of evoking profound emotions and reiterating the talent of a director who continues to explore new expressive territories. A work that, with all its nuances, seals the arrival of an actress to keep an eye on: heavenly from the door.
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