Review of 'Parthenope': Sorrentino returns with surface charms

A softer Paolo Sorrentino (“Great beauty”) is still a fertile image manufacturer. That means that a disposed spectator can cost through much of the new film of the Italian writer and director, “Parthenope”, about an enigmatic happiness of Neapolitan beauty (both people and places) and languid charm. However, the rest of the time, things are beautiful but unfocused, such as dreams that are medium remembered, not tangible enough to incur real meaning.

The film is based on the life of an intelligent woman, incredibly beautiful and unsatisfied. But “Parthenope” should not have to strive as hard as it does: he plays as an advertisement of fragrance. That qualifies as a disappointment for a filmmaker whose sensualist impulses are the level of God. Sometimes, its eccentric and loose narration style can cushion the impact of the rare -ever -looking emotions. And with his “partenope” too long, the slight suppression of most of his impulses in the style of Fellini in favor of a sexy aura of Michelangelo Antonioni only produces scattered results.

Swim in the sea of ​​Naples, named for the mythical siren, but for the first time we realized as a 18 -year -old bikini goddess that emerges from the bright water, Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta) is, despite its appearance, disagreement With the power of its beauty. Carrying an air of wink interruption: the gardener obtains a free tunic show, and also a bewildered circumspection, turns under the summer sun as a brilliant, brilliant and smoking seducer and smoking cigarettes, causing the rowing equipment to stop and look (So ​​(as much less lethal than what the real sirens did). He also enjoys a toy flirtatious relationship (and in one case, revealing) with the young attractions that surround her. And Naples offers many of those.

But Parthenope also knows how softly, and with a mocking smile, it goes back to anyone's preconceived notions about who she is and what she is thinking or not. A devout and ambitious student reader delights with the depressive stories of John Cheever, who even makes a guest appearance as a acquaintance of tourism (played by Gary Oldman), giving pontifications soaked in Geneva on the transition of young people. In his university, meanwhile, Parthenope impresses its tired Professor of Anthropology (Silvio Orlando) with the opening of her curiosity.

The academic career that yearns, however, does not prevent him from exploring what is out there, and the Sorrentino experience menu for his covers a lot That Hovoves in a helicopter, an adventure with a popular hero that connects it with the poor masses of the city, a personal tragedy that reminds him of the fragility of life. Perhaps in the most scandalous diversion, visit a carnally philosophical bishop (Peppe Lanzetta). Even the preserved blood of the patron of Naples Saint San Gennaro is susceptible to its charms. Its transfer of transfer seems to attract every rarity and incident, but as the years go by, there is also a fixation in its resolution.

That is also the problem with Sorrentino's approach. Are you really interested in the depths of its creation, or only in the superficial pleasures of a scenario that makes some points here and there about the eternal attraction of beauty? Everything while its protagonist is a beautiful protagonist plays a cryptic symbol?

An admirable reality to this unfortunately superficial adventure is how stable Dalla Porta. Know the demanding direction of Sorrentino with an indifferent game, very looking at the lens! It is not a simple performance of the coverage model within the high brightness of the cinematography of Daria d'A. Antonia. And she is asking the questions that the movie wants to ask. But without a character we feel connected, even the great beauty of Parthenope, aimed at suggesting Naples itself, qualifies as an overloaded resource.