"La Chimera" is a bittersweet addition to the magical-Italian-realism cinematic universe of director Alice Rohrwacher. Her new parable about Italy that's also a folklore fairytale tells the story of clairvoyant/haunted archeologist/graverobber Arthur, played by Josh O'Connor. Arthur's journey to retrieve the film's buried namesake is not one for glory and it's barely for riches; O'Connor commits both emotionally and physically to a naturalistic portrait of a lost man searching for something that is beyond the tangible. This heavy-hearted quest is balanced thanks to moments orchestrated by Arthur's local gang of merry graverobbers, played by former collaborators from Rohrwacher films. Another great performance is by Isabella Rosellni, playing a women that is connected to Arthur through personal history and in her attachment to living in the past. The film is far less narrative-driven, instead choosing to follow Arthur from one moment to another, a nod to the wandering man of other Italian greats, Pasolini and Felini. The ending, similarly, leaves viewers with the choice of deciding whether Arthur was victorious in fulfilling his wish or not.
14 Reviews
A Delightfully Charming Odyssey
brentsbulletinboard19 October 2023
When an English tomb raider (Josh O'Connor) skilled at dowsing uses his skills to hunt down buried Etruscan artifacts, he achieves success at his craft but suffers setbacks when he falls in with the wrong crowd. As a consequence, he drifts through life, trying to find his way (and, ironically enough, a moral footing), an odyssey filled with quirky people and events, a would-be romantic interest (Carol Duarte) with two carefully concealed children, an aging operatic instructor (Isabella Rossellini) skilled at fleecing her "students," and, of course, his coterie of comical criminal cronies. Writer-director Alice Rohrwacher's latest tells a delightful fable full of wit, whimsy, colorful characters, high intrigue and its share of surreal moments, all set against the Italian landscape. The film admittedly takes a little time to find its stride, so getting through the opening act will require some patience (editing here would have helped). But, once the picture finds its way, it becomes a fun-filled ride, peppered with absurdist humor and filmed with Fellini-esque cinematography and a production design reminiscent of the famed auteur. With a runtime of 2:10:00, it could stand some trimming (most notably at the outset, as noted above), but this cinematic charmer is a modestly pleasant diversion to watch while stretched out on the couch while casually savoring a demitasse of espresso and a plate of biscotti. Godere!
Two hours lost in a world of poetry
ocupadoemnascer19 December 2023
Poetry is the first word that comes to mind when trying to describe that movie. Alice Rorhwacher depicts a world where past and present are interwoven. A forgotten rural Italy, haunted by the remnants of Antiquity. The movie is full of symbols, and the boundaries between past and present, life and death, reality and fantasy are constantly blurred.
The main character, Arthur, is marked by grief, and hides his pain among a band of gentle thieves. All around him, there is misery but also resilience, joy, survival. In this picaresque landscape, Arthur seems to be the only character inhabited by tragedy.
Rorhwacher has the power to evoke emotions that are hard to describe. I left the theater in a contemplative state and I've been thinking about the movie a lot since then. Only good movies can do that.
The main character, Arthur, is marked by grief, and hides his pain among a band of gentle thieves. All around him, there is misery but also resilience, joy, survival. In this picaresque landscape, Arthur seems to be the only character inhabited by tragedy.
Rorhwacher has the power to evoke emotions that are hard to describe. I left the theater in a contemplative state and I've been thinking about the movie a lot since then. Only good movies can do that.
An Italian comedic fable of love, family, and tomb raiding.
Brock_L9 October 2023
I'm a sucker for most things italian, especially it's cinema, I loved La Chimera. The story of Arthur, an Englishman inhabiting an Italian's universe, whose remarkable abilities have led him to a life with a group of tomb robbers going after Etruscan antiquities for sale on the black market. Beguiled by love, Arthur is tormented by the memory of his lost Beniamina, whose mother (Isabella Rossellini) serves as a matriarchal groundpost. His lone, sad male presence in an otherwise all female family, is delightfully contentious and catty. Italia, the 'student maid', plays the fool to survive and succeed against odds.
Like a troupe of players, the tomb hunters seem like a vagabond theatre troupe, reminiscent of the circus in La Strada, one of Fellini's greats.
Adventurously cutting between film stocks and formats, the direction and camera work are exceptional and fitting.
A wonderful tale of surprise and intrigue driven by a cast of characters that only Italian's could present. Lovely in it's life and vibrancy.
Like a troupe of players, the tomb hunters seem like a vagabond theatre troupe, reminiscent of the circus in La Strada, one of Fellini's greats.
Adventurously cutting between film stocks and formats, the direction and camera work are exceptional and fitting.
A wonderful tale of surprise and intrigue driven by a cast of characters that only Italian's could present. Lovely in it's life and vibrancy.
Following the thread
pbczf3 May 2024
Arthur, the disheveled former archaeologist turned Etruscan tomb-finder, is a man on a quest. When we first meet him, he is dreaming on a train heading home after being released from prison. Once home, he soon falls in with his old gang of tomboli (grave-robbers) and they're on the search for treasure in the earth. For the rest of the gang, treasure means loot from Etruscan tombs; Arthur seems to be searching for something else. We get clues to Arthur's search in recurring images of a young woman and her red thread first seen in the opening shots of the film. The woman, we soon learn, is Beniamina, the daughter of Flora and Arthur's beloved. Flora lives in a crumbling palazzo with Italia, her singing student, and a group of women who call Flora mother. Italia is being exploited as a servant by Flora, who believes she is tone-deaf, but Italia in turn is raising two children in the house unbeknownst to Flora. The film juxtaposes these two kinds of groups: the rival groups of tomboli led by men and the communal groups led by women (Italia forms the second group in a disused railway station), which echoes the remark early in the film that Italy would be much less macho today if the Etruscans had beaten the Romans rather than the other way around.
The film is full of mythic and historical resonances. Arthur is a latter-day Orpheus searching for his Eurydice (the first musical cue is from Monteverdi's Orfeo), but without Orpheus's gift of music. The red thread recalls Ariadne and the labyrinth. Italia's first language is Portuguese and her children are of many ethnicities. And so on. In the hands of a lesser director or screenwriter this hybrid creature of different parts (you might call it a chimera) could have been a mess, but here everything seems to cohere and to create a mythic world that resembles our own, but is at an angle to it. That everything clicks into place so precisely and beautifully in the final scene is a tribute to just how tightly this loose-seeming film is constructed. Rarely have the loose threads of a plot been gathered with as much skill or in a more satisfying way.
Many of the photographic tricks (different film stocks, different aspect ratios, scenes undercranked) sound gimmicky, but, except for the undercranking, most are there for people who notice and transparent to those who don't. The cast is uniformly excellent.
For all its playfulness and its conceits, this moving, elegiac film tells the story of a great love and is a great love story.
The film is full of mythic and historical resonances. Arthur is a latter-day Orpheus searching for his Eurydice (the first musical cue is from Monteverdi's Orfeo), but without Orpheus's gift of music. The red thread recalls Ariadne and the labyrinth. Italia's first language is Portuguese and her children are of many ethnicities. And so on. In the hands of a lesser director or screenwriter this hybrid creature of different parts (you might call it a chimera) could have been a mess, but here everything seems to cohere and to create a mythic world that resembles our own, but is at an angle to it. That everything clicks into place so precisely and beautifully in the final scene is a tribute to just how tightly this loose-seeming film is constructed. Rarely have the loose threads of a plot been gathered with as much skill or in a more satisfying way.
Many of the photographic tricks (different film stocks, different aspect ratios, scenes undercranked) sound gimmicky, but, except for the undercranking, most are there for people who notice and transparent to those who don't. The cast is uniformly excellent.
For all its playfulness and its conceits, this moving, elegiac film tells the story of a great love and is a great love story.
Self-Paced (MAMI MFF 2023 #17)
nairtejas6 November 2023
La Chimera works on its own pace and it flustered me in the beginning. A man fresh out of prison is on his way back home when he meets with a sudden desire (from others) for him to resume his life like nothing happened. The slow, meandering introduction can play spoilsport to your viewing but if you pay attention, you'll begin to love the film, which is about the stolen artefacts industry in Italy and how a group of pilferers depend on a psychic of sorts to detect tombs filled with such artefacts. I loved the technical bits of La Chimera but it has all the veins of a self-indulgent narrative with flashbacks that are left to the viewer to unfold and understand.
(Watched at the 2023 MAMI Mumbai Film Festival.)
(Watched at the 2023 MAMI Mumbai Film Festival.)
A tale of two worlds
slzoras27 November 2023
Alice Rorhwacher does it again, another success after Lazarus, which I very much enjoy and remember (especially the ending). In this movie surprisingly, the ending is the least memorable part of the movie. The story follows an English archaeologist who dedicated his life to tomb raiding ancient Etrurian graves in an unspecified area of Italy in an unspecified period of the 20th century. He has a gift, a sixth sense that allows him to "sense" the presence of treasures. We follow his story as a gentle and quiet fish out of water in this country of poor farmers, criminals, art merchants, musicians, powerful matriarchs and fools. It's a weird fable about desecration, family, finding your roots, tradition.
It captures a feeling of "nowhere-ness" that really expresses the state of Italy as a country, with its rich history that is ultimately buried, forgotten, left at the behest of rich egotists and poor vandals. The juxtaposition of aesthetics is striking: the falling ruins of old houses and abandoned buildings with the sprawling but subdued rise of urban modernity (just Happy as Lazarus). The agonizing destruction of the past, the uncertainty and the greed of the future, and how the two don't even recognize each other in any way. A tale of unseen-ness. And at the center, Arthur, a man who doesn't belong in either of those, and doesn't know the point of his own existence.
So yeah, really good movie. There are a few flaws, though: Alba Rohrwacher's character feels like a very clear (too clear) personification of a concept, an idea, a satire, and she plays her like a Bond villain, which is strange and distracting. There are some moments (like the ending) where the metaphorical aspects of the film are more pronounced and less hidden, which is also distracting, and subtract meaning to the whole story. And finally, the ending could have been cut a little short; it's never pleasant when you stay seated and you feel like the movie should end at any time but it refuses and continuous.
Other than that, great movie. Slow, atmospheric, dreamy, makes you feel lost in time.
It captures a feeling of "nowhere-ness" that really expresses the state of Italy as a country, with its rich history that is ultimately buried, forgotten, left at the behest of rich egotists and poor vandals. The juxtaposition of aesthetics is striking: the falling ruins of old houses and abandoned buildings with the sprawling but subdued rise of urban modernity (just Happy as Lazarus). The agonizing destruction of the past, the uncertainty and the greed of the future, and how the two don't even recognize each other in any way. A tale of unseen-ness. And at the center, Arthur, a man who doesn't belong in either of those, and doesn't know the point of his own existence.
So yeah, really good movie. There are a few flaws, though: Alba Rohrwacher's character feels like a very clear (too clear) personification of a concept, an idea, a satire, and she plays her like a Bond villain, which is strange and distracting. There are some moments (like the ending) where the metaphorical aspects of the film are more pronounced and less hidden, which is also distracting, and subtract meaning to the whole story. And finally, the ending could have been cut a little short; it's never pleasant when you stay seated and you feel like the movie should end at any time but it refuses and continuous.
Other than that, great movie. Slow, atmospheric, dreamy, makes you feel lost in time.
La Chimera
CinemaSerf6 March 2024
A rather scruffy looking Josh O'Connor is "Arthur" who has found a way to make a living in rural Italy where he uses his unique gift with a divining rod - well a big twig, really - to uncover ancient artefacts from deep beneath the surface. He's not averse to a bit of grave robbing either - for which he has recently been imprisoned, and now he and his cohorts sell their stuff to "Spartaco" (Alba Rohrwacher) and via a rather unique technique, too! What's clear is that "Arthur" is getting over something fairly monumental in his life, and we get a clue to that when he visits the rather doting but blissfully ignorant and elderly "Flora" (Isabella Rossellini) at her increasingly dilapidated mansion house where the furniture is destined for the furnace and her family all know the secret, but dare not speak it. He, himself, inhabits a shanty-town style shed abutting the old city wall, his once proud linen suit now grubby and filthy and he is rarely without a cigarette. As the plot unfolds - aided by an agreeably sparing amount of dialogue - we start to get a sense that "Arthur" is actually coming to his senses after something akin to a concussion. The pieces of his life are slowly coming together again as he and his pals make the discovery of a lifetime, only for... It's a slowly paced film, but that works well - as do the infrequent but quite punchy comedic elements of the drama. There can be a comparison drawn between the gradual unearthing of the long lost relics and with his own re-realisation but it's all delivered with a brightness that keeps it from becoming downbeat or depressing. Director Alice Rohrwacher offers us a personal story tempered with a bit of mythology and a fair degree of ill-defined humanity that is compellingly incomplete in many ways. I reckon it might merit a second watch, there's plenty of nuanced writing here.
the anti - Indiana Jones movie
dromasca10 March 2024
I had two very good reasons to definitely want to see 'La Chimera' (2023). The first - this is the first feature film of the Italian director Alice Rohrwacher after the unusual and superb 'Lazzaro felice' (2018). The second - we have the opportunity to see Isabella Rossellini again in a fairly consistent role, an actress whom I love enormously and whom we have the opportunity to see far too rarely in recent years. Two promises, therefore, that raised the risk that expectations would be too high relative to the viewing experience. Fortunately, that was not the case. Even if it doesn't reach the magic of the director's previous film, 'La Chimera' is an interesting movie and one far from stereotypes, which transports us in its world and which accompanies us long after the viewing is over. Isabella Rossellini creates the role of an old lady with the professionalism and nobility that characterizes her, but also with the shadow of mystery that fascinated me in films like 'Blue Velvet'. I was not disappointed.
The story in 'La chimera' can be resumed like an action movie with tomb raiders. Arthur, the main hero, is an English archaeologist who travels to Italy to explore Etruscan tombs. The young man has a special talent for detecting where to dig to reveal treasures buried for millennia. Arthur carries in his soul the pain of the death of his lover, the daughter of a music teacher who lives in a ruined palace, assisted by a woman named Italia, to whom she gives singing lessons as payment. Demoralized and fresh out of prison, Arthur associates with a group of vagabonds who discover and illegally open and rob Etruscan tombs in order sell the finds to an antiquities dealer who then resells them for fabulous sums to the world's rich. The police are constantly on their trail, without excess of zeal or efficiency.
If we refer to the tomb raiders action movies genre, 'La Chimera' is an anti-Indiana Jones movie. What could be the story of an action movie mixed with a little melodrama and a little comedy is actually something else entirely. Not because the story doesn't matter, but because the way it is told and the characters that populate it are much more interesting. The film is imbued with the melancholy of the main character, played by the British actor Josh O'Connor (a discovery for me), who sees the world as a dream in which the woman he loved is always nearby, but he cannot ever reach her. The meeting with Italia (played by the excellent Carol Duarte - another discovery), a single mother who works to raise two children, represents a hope for recovery - both emotional and maybe moral, but according to her criteria. Trying to make him forget his lost love and turn him away from the path of crime has little chance of success. Viewing Isabella Rossellini is always a delight for me, and so it was here. Alice Rohrwacher is one of the most talented and daring directors of a generation (I should say 'one of the many generations') of exceptional Italian film directors. She knows how to take a story that could be told in many other ways and turn it into a film that bears her personal stamp, combining the traditions of neo-realism with Fellini's passion for popular culture and adding a dose of the fantastic brand Rohrwacher. When shooting decaying palaces, the streets or the popular dancing balls, the director seems to feel most in her element. She tells the story and plays with her tools, changes camera types and screen formats, and she does all these with an ease that constantly serves the narrative, so that at no point do we feel the cinematography is contrived or pretentious. Even if 'La chimera' stops a little lower than the formidable 'Lazzaro felice', it is a very good film that reinforces my belief that Italian cinema is in one of its glorious periods.
The story in 'La chimera' can be resumed like an action movie with tomb raiders. Arthur, the main hero, is an English archaeologist who travels to Italy to explore Etruscan tombs. The young man has a special talent for detecting where to dig to reveal treasures buried for millennia. Arthur carries in his soul the pain of the death of his lover, the daughter of a music teacher who lives in a ruined palace, assisted by a woman named Italia, to whom she gives singing lessons as payment. Demoralized and fresh out of prison, Arthur associates with a group of vagabonds who discover and illegally open and rob Etruscan tombs in order sell the finds to an antiquities dealer who then resells them for fabulous sums to the world's rich. The police are constantly on their trail, without excess of zeal or efficiency.
If we refer to the tomb raiders action movies genre, 'La Chimera' is an anti-Indiana Jones movie. What could be the story of an action movie mixed with a little melodrama and a little comedy is actually something else entirely. Not because the story doesn't matter, but because the way it is told and the characters that populate it are much more interesting. The film is imbued with the melancholy of the main character, played by the British actor Josh O'Connor (a discovery for me), who sees the world as a dream in which the woman he loved is always nearby, but he cannot ever reach her. The meeting with Italia (played by the excellent Carol Duarte - another discovery), a single mother who works to raise two children, represents a hope for recovery - both emotional and maybe moral, but according to her criteria. Trying to make him forget his lost love and turn him away from the path of crime has little chance of success. Viewing Isabella Rossellini is always a delight for me, and so it was here. Alice Rohrwacher is one of the most talented and daring directors of a generation (I should say 'one of the many generations') of exceptional Italian film directors. She knows how to take a story that could be told in many other ways and turn it into a film that bears her personal stamp, combining the traditions of neo-realism with Fellini's passion for popular culture and adding a dose of the fantastic brand Rohrwacher. When shooting decaying palaces, the streets or the popular dancing balls, the director seems to feel most in her element. She tells the story and plays with her tools, changes camera types and screen formats, and she does all these with an ease that constantly serves the narrative, so that at no point do we feel the cinematography is contrived or pretentious. Even if 'La chimera' stops a little lower than the formidable 'Lazzaro felice', it is a very good film that reinforces my belief that Italian cinema is in one of its glorious periods.
Interesting dreamy-like comedic Italian story
chenp-547087 April 2024
Italian cinema is pretty interesting as Italy has crafted some of the most genuine and masterful works of art in the past history of cinema. While modern Italian works haven't been big for me, La Chimera is an interesting story with interesting choices of direction from Alice Rohrwacher, beautiful camerawork, writing and performances from the cast members. It's universe the movie settles itself is dream-like, bizarre, and quite engaging with the direction and camerawork guiding the narrative throughout.
Including some interesting music choices and performances that are wonderful. Since it is a slow-burn setting, there are some pacing issues that made me feel a bit disconnected with it's characters and certain aspects that could have been explored a bit more. It's undeniably an creative approach of modern Italian cinema and Rohrwacher has the potential to craft some amazing potential masterpieces for Italian cinema in the near future.
Including some interesting music choices and performances that are wonderful. Since it is a slow-burn setting, there are some pacing issues that made me feel a bit disconnected with it's characters and certain aspects that could have been explored a bit more. It's undeniably an creative approach of modern Italian cinema and Rohrwacher has the potential to craft some amazing potential masterpieces for Italian cinema in the near future.
A touching tale of love, life, dream and death
franpenpal10 January 2024
When you get to know and understand love, it is hard to think of it as something other than life itself. All the main characters of La Chimera are enslaved by their chimeras, their impossible fantasies and fixations, and some of them even go the extra mile of disturbing dead Etruscans in the desperate attempt to fulfill thm. Arthur is in a sort of limbo for the duration of the whole film, trying to figure out how to come back to life, how to have life, love, dream and death finally converge. Alice Rohrwacher tells us that there is more to life than what meets the eye, and she makes Arthur gradually come to this conclusion himself: some things are not meant for human eyes to see, not for now anyway.
Interesting but lacks backstory
RegalsReelView18 April 2024
A foreign archeologist, out of touch with reality, uses his gift to find and raid tombs with his gang of grave robbers. Events have transpired, leaving him roaming the country, isolated. With every tomb they raid, the man looks for more than artifacts left by a past society.
This is an intriguing Italian film, but some cultural background might be necessary to understand the story entirely. The protagonist's lack of a backstory makes the story a bit complicated. The film is long, slow, and requires the reading of subtitles. This film may not be for everyone, but it is worth a watch if you are looking for something outside of mainstream Hollywood.
This is an intriguing Italian film, but some cultural background might be necessary to understand the story entirely. The protagonist's lack of a backstory makes the story a bit complicated. The film is long, slow, and requires the reading of subtitles. This film may not be for everyone, but it is worth a watch if you are looking for something outside of mainstream Hollywood.
Threadbare attendance. More slow, dull film-making
claytonhq17 March 2024
Saw this as the final offering of the Borderlines Film Festival, Herefordshire 2024. I attended 10 films.
Audiences for this sort of dross are down to the bare bones now (15 in the cinema tonight) while the website critics continue to wax lyrical about all the fantastic dimensions of this art that remain invisible to us peasants. The Emperor's new clothes spring to mind.
When they refer to "comedic elements" I presume they're referring to the fast-motion bits (presumably an homage to early '70s Benny Hill TV sketches). Yep, Benny got way more laughs than this one.
Modern art films have sadly disappeared up their own bottom. To create you must must be able to communicate - it's a process that involves bouncing ideas around, not sitting in an ivory tower wandering around inside your own mind and mixing in ever decreasing circles of very rarefied humanity pathetically attempting to prop each other up with sycophantism. Meanwhile the rest of us lose interest and wander off.
Downbeat, poorly drawn and drawn out. Every film I saw in this festival could justifiably be described as slow. Storytelling has given way to egotistical rambling. Boring.
Audiences for this sort of dross are down to the bare bones now (15 in the cinema tonight) while the website critics continue to wax lyrical about all the fantastic dimensions of this art that remain invisible to us peasants. The Emperor's new clothes spring to mind.
When they refer to "comedic elements" I presume they're referring to the fast-motion bits (presumably an homage to early '70s Benny Hill TV sketches). Yep, Benny got way more laughs than this one.
Modern art films have sadly disappeared up their own bottom. To create you must must be able to communicate - it's a process that involves bouncing ideas around, not sitting in an ivory tower wandering around inside your own mind and mixing in ever decreasing circles of very rarefied humanity pathetically attempting to prop each other up with sycophantism. Meanwhile the rest of us lose interest and wander off.
Downbeat, poorly drawn and drawn out. Every film I saw in this festival could justifiably be described as slow. Storytelling has given way to egotistical rambling. Boring.
Finding peace
TVO945 May 2024
Warning: Spoilers
The movie explores several characters of whom most in some way or another have something missing from their life: for the mother, its her safety and in particular the safety of her children; for the tomb raiders, its money and perhaps excitement; for Arthur it is the love of his life, a person permanently lost to the other side -- death -- whom he symbolically tries to connect with by opening tombs. Its a simple but beautiful idea from the screenwriter. While the first set of problems, that is chimeras, given to the supporting characters surrounding Arthur, are at least in principle solvable through luck or work, or even if these chimeras or problems remained unsolved, even then, life would continue as usual, however, Arthur's lost is qualitatively different. The movie builds towards the fact that only a new love or death can set Arthur free. In the end Arthur samples a new love, but still find himself looking for the love of his life. The redemption comes through his death, or there is no redemption in this life, this is left for the viewer to decide.
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