ROME — When director Paolo Sorrentino’s hit series “The Young Pope” debuted in 2016, it took a year for the Vatican to reluctantly bless his fictional and sometimes scandalous portrayal of the Pope. Not so for Sorrentino’s latest film, “Parthenope,” which has received early praise from Italy’s Catholic Church.
This has increased interest in the film and it has topped the box office of Italian films since its theatrical release last month.
Set in Sorrentino’s native Naples, the film is a sublime meditation on beauty, love, and death, drawn from the Greek myth of the Siren Parthenope, who throws herself into the sea after failing to tempt Odysseus with her song. Is. The Parthenope is closely associated with Naples, thus the city is sometimes called “Parthenope” in Italian and its people “Partenopei”.
The film is not about the Church in any way, but at the end of the film, there is a scene that will shock any Catholic. These include a Cardinal, seducing the hero Parthenope and the liquefaction of the blood of San Gennaro – an alleged recurring miracle that is a sacred cow for many Neapolitans.
Prominent Italian Catholics condemned the profane sex scene as offensive not only to the faith but also to Naples, with Avenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, calling the “sterile aesthetics” of the scene “in bad taste.”
In a round of negative reaction, Avenir stated that Sorrentino’s fascination with the Catholic Church in “The Young Pope” had reached new lows in “Parthenope”.
Avenier concluded, “The impression is that they are images chosen for the sake of image, whether a nun playing tennis or a cardinal smoking a cigar.”
Monsignor Vincenzo De Gregorio, who oversees the chapel that houses the Bloody Relic of San Gennaro and the associated treasures of Naples’ patron saint, said he had not seen the film in its entirety but that clips of the scene were sufficient.
While acknowledging that his comments would bring more publicity to the film, De Gregorio told Corriere Della Sera that he mainly objected to the “superficial” treatment given by the film to one of Naples’ enduring mysteries: San Gennaro. How blood liquefies, or not, on three specific days each year.
According to legend, the alleged miracle is reminiscent of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1631 when San Gennaro’s blood liquefied and magma from the volcano stopped before entering the city. San Gennaro is today often invoked to protect Neapolitans, and the thrice-yearly ritual attracts thousands of devotees.
De Gregorio told Corriere, “Sorrentino certainly did not intend to make a documentary or a deep, sociological, historical analysis of Naples, but to analyze the dreamlike aspect of it, because that is basically what it is all about. ”
Sorrentino, who won an Oscar for his Fellini-esque love letter to Rome, “The Great Beauty,” has said that his ode to Naples was about the Parthenope, the sea, and the complex and sometimes contradictory relationship between them and Naples. Was focused.
“She is an independent woman, very spontaneous, she doesn’t judge, like the city doesn’t judge,” he said at a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival. “He’s a mirror of the town I grew up in.”
And some have praised “Parthenope,” with the Cannes jury giving its cinematographer, Daria D’Antonio, the festival’s technical prize. This week, Italian media reported that T-shirts emblazoned with “I love Sorrentino” and “I love Parthenope” and new figurines for Christmas creches have begun circulating around Naples, for which Neapolitan artisans are famous, including characters from the film. Including one of.
Sorrentino was spotted posing for selfies and autographs with fans during a special screening of the film in Palermo, Sicily, this week.
It’s the latest brush with recent cinematic attention for Naples, the setting for the HBO television series “My Brilliant Friend,” based on Elena Ferrante’s best-selling quartet of novels.
Sorrentino’s last feature film, “The Hand of God”, was also based in Naples and featured Maradona, another sacred but secular icon of the Neapolitans. Previously, he made a splash with his 10-episode series “The Young Pope”, starring Jude Law as an unreliable and controversial Pope, which was followed by “The New Pope” starring John Malkovich.
A year after the initial HBO and Sky series began airing in Italy in late 2016, Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano finally offered a generally positive review, even though it was described as “frivolous”, “caustic” and “bizarre”. Has been portrayed properly. Vatican.
L’Osservatore Romano has not commented on “Parthenope”.
The Vatican is a perennial subject for directors, with a number of films focusing on the papacy in recent years including Nanni Moretti’s “Habemus Papum,” Netflix’s “The Two Popes” and most recently “Conclave” starring Ralph Fiennes.
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