A ragtag group of grave robbers leads the way in Rohrwacher’s continuously inventive and occasionally sublime film, about the desires of humans to continue searching for existential meaning in both physical and metaphysical realms.
Review #2,791
Dir. Alice Rohrwacher
2023 | Italy | Drama | 133 min | 1.37:1 & 1.66:1 | Italian & English
PG13 (passed clean) for some coarse language
Cast: Josh O’Connor, Carol Duarte, Alba Rohrwacher, Isabella Rossellini, Vincenzo Nemolato
Plot: Just out of jail and still searching for his late beloved Beniamina, crumpled English archaeologist Arthur reconnects with his wayward crew of tombaroli accomplices – a happy-go-lucky collective of itinerant grave-robbers who survive by looting Etruscan tombs and fencing the ancient treasures they dig up.
Awards: Nom. for Palme d’Or (Cannes)
International Sales: The Match Factory (SG: Anticipate Pictures)
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Grave-robbing; History & Mortality
Narrative Style: Slightly Complex
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: Slightly Arthouse
Viewed: The Projector Cineleisure
Spoilers: No
From the director of Corpo Celeste (2011), The Wonders (2014) and Happy as Lazzaro (2018) comes La chimera, a film that should whet the appetite of existing and new fans alike.
One of the finest female auteurs working in European cinema today, Alice Rohrwacher deeps dig (literally!) with this period piece centering on Arthur (Josh O’Connor), who has just been released from prison.
With a nose for finding historical artefacts of considerable value, he leads a ragtag group of grave robbers to locate these buried goodies.
Arthur, however, is still searching for his long-lost lover, Beniamina—and so Rohrwacher intriguingly brings to the table a kind of thematic mirroring.
On one hand, La chimera is about the retrieval of symbols from the ancient past; at the same time, it is also about an unsated longing for what may already be gone.
“You always find everything.”
So this process of searching and hoping to find something that has been well-preserved (as physical artefacts or metaphysical memories) is what drives the core of the narrative.
A mix of magical realism, Fellini-esque tones (particularly its first act) and an organic tactility that has now become a hallmark of Rohrwacher’s craft such is her attention to milieu-shaping through production design and characterisations, La chimera is largely a compelling watch despite not moving past second gear.
Accompanied by an eclectic soundscape that sees the director use everything from the big band to ‘80s-style electronic synths, the film is continuously inventive.
One interesting—and recurring—camera move sees it turn the film upside-down, not just mimicking the protagonist’s mental disorientation, but also becoming the film’s phenomenological mode of address, by positing that we are nothing more than two worlds operating symbiotically—and sublimely.
Our external and internal experiences of intense passions for someone or something that is never present and perpetually deferred might be what Rohrwacher is attempting to capture with La chimera.
Grade: B+
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 
[…] Chimera, La (2023) […]
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