Neil BakerLa Chimera arrives in cinemas on May 10.
Alice Rohrwacher’s Italian magical mystery tour defies simple explanation; it is a love story, an archaeological adventure and a character study of an “out of time” outsider who doesn’t fit 80s Tuscany. It is a mystery, a melodrama, a fantasy and a comedy. It is a sublime, offbeat, distinctive and enthralling cinematic treasure. What more would we expect from Rohrwacher; after all, she brought us the beguiling beauty and brilliance of Happy as Lazzaro (2018) and the magical realism of The Wonders (2014). La Chimera holds the anachronism of her previous films as she focuses her lens on Italy’s rich historical treasures, its role as a birthplace of our modern world and its ability to have one foot in the past while the other tentatively explores the present and the future. It is a love letter to Italy’s filmmaking past from Pier Paolo Pasolini to Luchino Visconti and Roberto Rossellini, and a celebration of its glorious cinematic present and future.
Our story opens sometime in the 1980s with English-born Arthur, the outstanding Josh O’Connor, asleep on a train in a dishevelled and grubby white suit. He has just been released from prison and is heading home to Riparbella, Tuscany. He is an archaeologist and adventurer who is now no more than a grave robber, his unique “god-given” ability to find tombs and graves twisted into a financial opportunity he appears to care little about. As he silently sits in his carriage with fellow passengers staring at his grubby attire, a beautiful woman named Beniamina haunts him, a woman he lost and still attempts to find in the darkness of his dreams. He wakes as a small group of young women sitting opposite giggle, intrigued by the dishevelled traveller in their presence.
As Arthur arrives home, he is warmly welcomed by his merry band of bohemian grave-robbing partners, eager to resume their work, selling the loot they discover alongside Arthur to a mysterious and shady dealer called Spartaco. But as Arthur settles back into his filthy self-built home of corrugated iron sheets in the hills, he develops a romantic connection with a young woman called Italia (Carol Duarte), a woman who will challenge Arthur’s sense of right and wrong just as the most significant discovery of his life comes into view. But can Arthur ever exorcise the ghost of Beniamina, who haunts his every waking moment?
Every minute of Rohrwacher’s film is a cinematic treat, from O’Connor’s stunning central performance as the broody, melancholic and mysterious Arthur to an ensemble cast that lights up the screen. Like all of Rohrwacher’s previous films, La Chimera feels timeless, a magical mystery tour that ducks, dives and defies expectations right up to the final scene. Like Happy as Lazzaro, it also carries important and urgent discussions on capitalism, history and culture. Here, Rohrwacher explores human greed and the exploitation of a nation’s history and wealth. Italia warns Arthur and his troupe of the price they will pay for plundering the country’s history and the dead who rest silently under the ground; her name is no coincidence, nor is her mission to bring old empty buildings back to life. If Italia represents hope, rebirth, and the reclamation of the past to create a bright future, then Arthur embodies capitalism, cynicism and the corrupted romanticism of the 18th and 19th Century Grand Tour. La Chimera is a story about the past, present, and future and the faint dividing lines between them.
In creating this magical and haunting world, Rohrwacher and her brilliant director of photography, Hélène Louvart, once again use ratio, rounded film edges and different film stocks to create a feeling of timelessness while adopting a range of filming techniques that celebrate film history from 60’s inspired sped-up action sequences to 80s Spielberg-esque lighting of the tombs Arthur discovers, and colourful village festivities reminiscent of Fellini’s fantastical realism. The result is a beautiful, beguiling and bewitching work of art that deserves to be seen on the big screen.
