La Chimera (2024) is available to rent, buy or stream.
Running for nearly six months at a cinema in Los Angeles, Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera robbed the hearts of unsuspecting audiences with its rugged charm and sepia-toned melancholy. As those 2024 top film lists come out, La Chimera has been featuring more than expected – and deservedly so.
Rohrwacher’s mostly Italian award-winning film follows a band of graverobbers (known in Italian as tombaroli) who are mostly looked down upon by the locals in their village but who, in turn, look up to Josh O’Connor’s reluctantly charming character, Arthur, who is gifted with a mystical ability to sift out the location of ancient and valuable tombs. O’Connor successfully combines his British awkwardness, the intensity of his acting skill (also seen in Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers earlier this year) and the Italian nonchalance of Rohrwacher’s stylistics to create a crumpled image of a man haunted by the loss of his lover. He’s disconnected from his band of supposed friends, disenchanted by the magic of his abilities and dejected about his prospects. Rohrwacher manages to gather up Arthur’s diminishing passions and pass them on to us, the audience, hypnotised by the filthy neutral tones of the mud and dirt he casts aside.
The subject of many compliments, O’Connor’s ruggedly handsome look in La Chimera has been chalked down to some of the most wondrous set and costume designs. Having this rebellious, juvenile archaeologist dressed in a cream linen suit, surrounded by archaic wonders of marble and stone, almost allows Arthur to blend into the mysticism of Rohrwacher’s plot. His appearance is also somewhat isolating: no one dresses like him; likewise, no one wears the colours he does, nor does he appear to have any other outfit than the one glued to his back. As such, we find ourselves desperately sympathetic to Arthur, who seems destined to be friendless, purposeless, and loveless.
Of course, Rohrwacher doesn’t let the tale of La Chimera lose itself in the depth of Arthur’s melancholy and brings him the opportunity to engage in finding his purpose once more through the embrace of Italia, the live-in student and maid of his lost lover’s mother, Flora. Through her, Arthur finds companionship and the potential to redefine who he is and who he can be. Whilst the band of tombaroli he reunites with after a disagreement tends to drag his character down, Italia’s outrage and shock at the nature of Arthur’s work as a graverobber causes a heartbreaking chasm to develop between them. Having lost her lover through disappointment, Italia also loses her place with Flora and finds herself relegated to starting a community on the outskirts of the Italian town with her daughter, Colombina.
It’s clear through Italia’s sub-plot that the elements of belonging, togetherness and love are pertinent to the success of Rohrwacher’s vision, which is why the inclusion of Arthur’s past lover Beniamina and current interest, Italia, helps Arthur to discard his materialistic tendencies. Instead of selling his rarest artefacts for a high price, to benefit not just him but also his band of tombaroli, he departs from his graverobbing habits, tosses the artefact overboard, and in the process, loses his acquaintances and his opportunity for wealth, but gains clarity on what is important to him. In classic Rohrwacher style, even this change in clarity of purpose carries a vagueness: all we know and all we see is how Arthur feels pulled back to Italia in his loneliness.
Reunited once more, Arthur still feels unsated, and much like that haunting red thread that ties us to Arthur’s chimaeras, he finds himself drawn to the pull of the ground once more as the film draws to a close, leaving his purpose shrouded by the darkness of the dirt surrounding him.
United by its grainy feel, muddled characters and raw dialogue, La Chimera is a film that inspires a modern comprehension of archaeological discoveries through the simplest of human emotions: love. Through love and its neighbouring lust and desire, La Chimera teaches the ever-persistent lesson that we must chase what we want to no end if we wish to capture it.
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