La quimera

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.

I did enjoy this movie. Josh O'Connor and all of the cast deliver stellar performances. I settled down to watch a slow burn and indeed it is just that, but maybe a little to slow. I found myself hoping something more would happen. Every actor in this movie is wonderful, but towards the last half hour I just wanted it to wrap up. When it finally did wrap up, it was a bit of a damp squib. It was obviously coming and was no surprise. Most of the dialogue is Italian but subtitles don't worry me. Everything about this movie is great and I would not point fingers at the script writers or the actual dialogue. I just had issues with the strength of the actual story line. I think it may become a lost gem. It does not have mass appeal, but that is a trademark of Josh O'Connor; he just does the stuff that he wants and what challenges him. I cannot think of anything I have seen him in that was not brilliant, and this movie is up there, but only for a limited and mainly Italian audience. However, happy it was made. It is original, beautifully cast, thoughtful sets and wardrobe. Thanks.

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.

"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.

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.