La Chimera

Director: Alice Rohrwacher

2023

3 March 2025

See

Upon his release from prison, Arthur (Josh O’Connor) a disheveled archeologist in 1980’s Italy, reconnects with his merry band of Etruscan graverobbers.

Think

He’s both reluctant and compelled to excavate the past. A chimera refers to something specific everyone is looking for. Arthur suffers reveries, they give him flashbacks of his ex, Beniamina (Yile Yara Vianello) but also the location of hidden tombs. He’s full of purpose when divining a dig site with a rod (a stick like looking for water). The structure is a pastiche of styles, textures, sumptuous film stocks and light exposures of the rustic landscape and auguries of birds, of the rustic countryside, auguries of birds playing with time and pace. There are montages scored underscored by Italo disco electronic music, layered interviews with his Italian accomplices providing exposition of the evasive Arthur, even ballads by guitarists who sing of the uncertain scene you’ve just seen.r, and even ballads by guitarists singing about what you’ve seen but didn’t quite catch.

Feel

All of which makes him a protagonist that’s more than smouldering, Josh O’Connor brings depth to Arthur through his shy smile and relationships. Key are Flora (Isabella Rosellini) a local matriarch, warm and wheelchair bound. Her carer Italia (Carol Duarte) with her joie de vivre wanting to sing opera awfully, dance at alfresco parties, she’s a single mother and the complete opposite. And so the two attract, Italia teaches him how to sign hilarious gestures. It grounds the narrative in the present, even while building curiosity about Arthur’s backstory and wondering what it is he’s looking for in mining those depths.