written by: Alice Rohrwacher
produced by: Carlo Cresto Dina
directed by: Alice Rohrwacher
rated: not rated
runtime: 133 min.
U.S. release date: December 8, 2023 (limited), March 29, 2024 and April 5, 2024
“La Chimera” starts with the main character sleeping on a train making its way around the Florentine countryside. We see images from his dream, from a time when he was with a woman in the sun along a shoreline. When the train’s ticket collector awakens Arthur, he is asked if he was dreaming and is told, “Sorry, you’ll never know how it ends now.” As the film unfolds, one wonders if that line lingers for Arthur as much as it does for us.
The story, told by writer/director Alice Rohrwacher, is set in the early 1980s. As it unfolds, we gradually learn that Arthur (Josh O’Connor) is an English archeologist recently released from a prison stint due to his illegal excavations of ancient artifacts. He is returning to the Tuscan region in Italy with Benianna on his mind. She is gone, and he is heartbroken. Arthur often seems to be somewhere else. His mind is adrift, which manifests itself physically, frequently finding him out of breath or dizzy.
When he reunites with his grave-robbing gang, known affectionately throughout the region as the “tombaroli”, Arthur doesn’t share the eagerness they have to get started on their next dig, unearthing nearby rumored Etruscan treasures. Is it due to his time in prison, or is it because his heart isn’t in it anymore?
Regardless, Arthur still seems to have a preternatural talent with a divining rod, so the locals call him “Arthur the Dowser.” He can be seen using it in a trance-like state to find areas for the gang to dig. They lean more toward Lara Croft than Indiana Jones; they are in it for fortune, not glory.
Arthur, however, seems like he’s barely in it and simply falling back into something he has a knack for. This confounds his motley crew, but Flora (Isabella Rossellini), a wily aristocrat who resides in a deteriorating estate, embraces his return. She is mother to a handful of daughters, one of them was Beniamina (Yile Vianello). The two share an affinity for the past when Beniamina once walked among them. While he settles in the dilapidated shack near her estate, Arthur encounters Italia (a vibrant Carol Duarte), a music student and single mother working at the estate. She is dismissed and looked down upon by the catty daughters, who see her as a lowly servant. If he allows, Italia becomes someone who can tether Arthur to the present (and possibly the future). As he grows more disillusioned with his black market activity, we find Arthur pulled to the past while drawn to an uncertain future.
The grave robbing in “La Chimera” is quite different from what we’re used to seeing portrayed on screen. Usually, the vocation is associated with the high-stakes adventure of deception and betrayal. There’s little of that here, but without romance or glamour. The gypsy-like accomplices of Arthur are a scrappy bunch who sell their findings (often 2,000-year-old pots and statues) to a secretive local named Spartaco (Alba Rohrwacher, the director’s sister, who has been her previous films), who works out of a local animal hospital.
The film is the third in an informal trilogy from Rohrwacher, after “The Wonders” (2014) and “Happy as Lazzaro” (2018) both of which use a richly-rendered palette offering a rustic charm with Tuscan characters who struggle with internal regret. Rohrwacher reunites with cinematographer Hélène Louvart here, who lensed those two films and aligns herself with the director’s vision in an artfully astute manner. The two women have a talent for observing the unseen beauties that go unnoticed by the characters. Like when the tombaroli crew exhume an Etruscan tomb after an exhausted and reluctant Arthur points them a specific direction on a shoreline. As the lid unearths what has been sealed tight for thousands of years, we can see how new air enters and corrupts the interior environment. No one else notices except the camera and we, as viewers. Rohrwacher and Louvart toy with aspect ratios and camera speeds, even flipping Arthur upside down, allowing viewers to align themselves with the vision of this ethereal tale.
Arthur is a fascinating character, played by a hypnotizing O’Connor, who loses himself in the role and conveys a convincing portrait of a man who is emotionally and physically disoriented. There is a measured combination of pathos and melodrama in O’Connor’s performance, with appropriate hints of comedy. O’Connor’s scenes with Rossellini are excellent – actually, her scenes with anyone here are great. It feels like the veteran actress brings much more to the role than is in the screenplay. As Italia, Carol Duarte deftly steals every scene she’s in, playing a character that subtly lifts the tone of “La Chimera” into a handful of memorable scenes. One is a scene where Italia is observed dancing outdoors at an evening party. There is a carefree aura to Duarte’s work in this moment, and she is captured as if this moment in time is its own film. Italia could indeed be Arthur’s lifeboat, but he’s too consumed by these strong waves from his past that are pulling him under.
As the film nears its end, the title becomes fitting, considering it can be defined as something one hopes or wishes for but cannot obtain or reunite with. Throughout “La Chimera,” Arthur searches for a legendary door to the underworld and possibly to Beniamina. We know that’s an unobtainable goal, but this quest nonetheless consumes him, and Rohrwacher’s ending posits that maybe he does reunite with her.
RATING: ***1/2
