User reviews

"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.

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.

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!

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 tombaroli (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 tombaroli 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. Flights of birds (and ominous pigeons) follow Arthur. 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.

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.

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.

"La Chimera" is a beautiful, ethereal film about an expert relic hunter (played by Josh O'Connor) who's haunted by the death of his love.

As the movie starts, he's recently been released from jail, and he reluctantly reteams with his old gang, a group of petty criminals who dig up old gravesites for treasure and then sell it on the black market. It's a very specific premise about something I know nothing about -- I didn't even know that this was a thing in Italy. But the emotions felt by the various characters in the movie are universal enough that anyone can relate despite the film's esoteric plot.

It's a meandering movie that may be too slow for some tastes, but I enjoyed it the way I would enjoy sitting in a sunny garden on a warm, drowsy day listening to an old-timer relate some fascinating stories from their past. It has that kind of quality to it.

And though I usually resist magical realism, the ending of this film almost took by breath away.

Grade: A.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

Let me start by saying I had heard so many people praise this film that I arrived half an hour early to insure my seat. I was ready to love it. I am a HUGE Fellini and Italy fan, and had read comparisons to Fellini along with accolades of "sheer poetry", etc. I was interested to see Josh O' Connor who I'd enjoyed so much in The Crown. And finally, I've been interested in archaeology since the 7th grade so I was looking forward to that aspect as well. I couldn't have been more shocked by how terminally boring it was. Fellini comparisons are an insult to Fellini. This was a giant nothing burger. I saw this with a fairly full crowd in San Francisco and the "comedy" was so MIA I didn't even hear a giggle. The acting was very underwhelming. The script was nowhere making the characters even more so. "Poetry" was MIA, sheer or opaque. The pace was glacial. To be clear, a film can be slow and wonderful (e.g. Pather Panchali) which this was most definitely not. As for the "action" it did compel me to get up and walk out after the first hour, and I can't recall the last time I did that. I understand that most of the people reviewing this here are giving raves, but honestly, save your hard earned dough.

An intriguing title, clearly "chimera" in the sense of a delusion or fantasy, and maybe specifically the illusion that anything at all can have permanence. Obviously we see that in the tombs of the people who lived thousands of years ago which are now being raided by this motley crew, but we also see it in the main character's relationship with his girlfriend, her mother's crumbling mansion, and the abandoned train station in town. Everything has its day, then fades away.

I have a dim view of those who pillage archaeological sites for personal gain, and probably because of that struggled initially to appreciate this film, but Rohrwacher's gentle, digressive style slowly worked its charms on me. I had been wondering if there would be any limit to what these tomb raiders might do since early on the Etruscan objects they find are relatively "minor," and the moment they discover a breathtaking shrine, creating a moral crisis for the leader, was brilliant. I shuddered when the head of a sculpture was broken off for easier transport. We then find that they're just smaller operators in a chain of corruption that extends from the wealthy to museum curators, calling to mind real-life scandals. The monetization of priceless artifacts feels like an affront in every possible way, and the main character looking down at the goddess's head felt like he was staring into his own soul.

However that's not the final moment of truth, and he comes to another fork in the road of his life, the choice between a new relationship with a woman who is ironically renovating a living space out of ruins, or to continue using his gift for divination to pillage ancient sites despite his growing guilt. Spiritually it's a life or death choice, and we find that literally that's true too. There's something stirring about our all-too-human weakness in the face of the past which looks silently back at us, a reminder that all of our greed and maneuvering is meaningless, one we don't heed.

La Chimera is a slow burning journey with plenty to say that's deliberately hard to pin down, making it all the more rewarding when it coalesces. Coincidentally, it's also the best film released in the last year about a grizzled archaeologist returning to recovering ancient artefacts on one last adventure whilst still grieving the loss of a loved one.

Josh O'Connor is so good at being reserved without being completely closed off. The only real emotion that he shows is anger but everything else is so clearly contained in his anguish and charming smile. He's supported by a crew of boisterous personalities who are initially a lot of fun to be around though not without their darker sides.

Alice Rohrwacher's direction draws you in and keeps you so invested that the subtle aspect ratio shifts almost go unnoticed. It's simultaneously a film that's very grounded with stunning locations which all feel lived in and at the same time has it's more surreal moments that imbues the film with a dreamlike nature, especially in its final moments.

Solid premise, acting from the lead (at points he and it reminded me of the kind of film you might have seen Donald Sutherland in in the 70s) and a number of individual scenes that were compelling and held your attention (in the tomb by the power plant, the railway station squatter house of women and children, the bookending train scenes). It's all the inbetween that I struggled with ... and I read a review that described it as a comedy? Any comedic elements I found a bit naff. At points it reminded me of "The Last Wave" (but that's a much much better film), and at others of "Memoria" (also at turns compelling and repelling). Interesting moments but at parts a real trudge.

The enchanting allure of La chimera smoothly treads between myth and romance, where fantasy is no longer unimaginable but a transformative possibility found where the lines between dream and memory are often blurred by formal unpredictability.

Its inheritance of Italian Neorealism and Felliniesque carries within a history of emotion and style. The aesthetics aren't just a choice. They're a statement of timeless beauty. A beauty magnified by the story of Arthur, a looter involved in the black market of historical artifacts with a gift to sense where they are, that channels the grace of an irretrievable past. Josh O'Connor's contrast with the rest of the cast not only enhances the film's fascination with the dreamy yet earthy sublime but also adds elements of mystery and melancholy through the protagonist's barely hinted past.

Alice Rohrwacher's La chimera eventually develops a recognizable shape, but it doesn't sacrifice its artistry, and that's the beauty of it.

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.

Arthur and his gang of grave robbers - who are unaware of him, but authentic in their own way - live by stealing ancient objects from tombs, bypassing the police, and reselling them on the official art market, to private collectors but also to circuit officials museum. Arthur often takes refuge in Flora's (Isabella Rossellini) large, decadent house. Flora is the mother of Beniamina, the girl who broke the protagonist's heart by dying, and who is the main chimera of the film, Ariadne's thread that holds everything, right from the prologue. In weaving it, the director carries out an exploration of the world through the hybridization of images with a heterogeneous, even opposite register, and yet capable of amalgamating everything with wisdom.

Lachimera.it This poetic, sensorial, enveloping film is beautiful, making you feel the smells of nature, the intense green as if it were moss on the rock, the humidity of the earth, glimpses of villages, archaic slums, beautiful abandoned railway stations. And it does so by hybridizing and then combining formats, 35 millimeters, super 16 millimeters and 16 millimeters: everything is reality, everything is cinema, naturalistic aesthetics as well as amateur video, or photography that becomes pastel, painting , fresco.

Lachimera.it.

I probably need to do my homework before approaching this movie. Who's "La Chimera" and what is going in Italy on these days. All the references flew above my head, the musical score was great, but l lack the context and the pace was... very slow and frustrating for a large portion of the movie.

I have detected great acting performance and a visionary director, which Cannes adore and is getting the red carpet ready for a march, but it wasn't so clear to me, the ignorant viewer, what the director wanted to say with all of her angles, artistic filming of the world upside down and a lot of other gimmicks, that passed right next to me.

It is one of those movies that I would appreciate more after reading about them, but not others - this one didn't give me any drive to try and reach out a lot more after finishing watching it. Its pace drove me crazy and somewhere along the way, I started losing interest with the film and just got bored.

Its one thing to believe in your art and point it to a specific type of audience, but this movie almost tries to divide the audience on purpose and to state it is only for those that will dig and try to dismantle all of the movie's icons, images and metaphors that this movie is dropping on them, like...every ten minutes.

I have enjoyed watching it, until getting it is not actually going anywhere. It seemed that it has reached its limit as far as the plot took it and the movie has been stuck, while searching for a closer, which will be able to wake me, personally, from my bored state of mind.

There are tombs under the ground packed full of treasure, antiquities Etruscan lost forever, although a young lad name of Arthur, knows exactly what he's after, divination is his game - and he's a master. On his journey he encounters allegories, that reflect, relate, connect to lots of stories, with the help of tombaroli, layers are peeled away quite slowly, of a puzzle that you may not see - quite wholly. If you follow through the threads there are connections, that reverberate with echoes and reflections, links and ties and strange liaisons, idols, icons, their foundations - takes you to a place, that's riven with affection.

Josh O'Connor is magnificent.

La Chimera.

A group of archaeologists and the black market of historical artifacts.

La Chimera is a slow burning charming movie, an original one in an Italian environment whichi I really appreciated.

As I said La Chimera was indeed fascinating to watch, the spherical 16mm was a game changer, I loved it... It is charming.

Well, the technicalities aren't the only good thing about this film, the story is interesting while a had a big problem with the pace but it helped a little to make me get into the mood.

However, I think that the ending was indeed worth the wait, it ends in a very charming way... I really wanted to admire this movie more than I did, but feeling bored watching a movie just made it a bit harder for me.

I'll definitely enjoy this in a second viewing.

Josh O'Connor proves once again that he's one of the most talented actors in the industry for the moment.

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.

With funding almost impossible to find these days for anything other than Marvel type nonsense I'm amazed this beautiful challenging. Profound film got made . It eschews racy camera work and saunters along allowing space and time to build up a hypnotic atmosphere Very much a Fellini for today with finding poetry amidst bleakly beautiful environments and with bizarre looking casts . It is multi layered in its pan historic mythical references and is utterly captivating A masterpiece on every level in my opinion.

Bravo to this exceptionally gifted writer / director and to Josh 0' Connors mesmerising performance.. and of course to the ever sublime Isabella Rossellini.

Alice Rohrwacher is her own woman, but she's filling the Agnes Varda-sized hole in my cinematic heart. Of the films I've seen be her, this is the most playful so far.

Granted there is a dust-to-dust element that in other hands could have felt heavier. That said, this was a joy to watch for me (and my son also appreciated elements of it, his first Rohrwacher watching). The character of Italia is so crucial, telling Art(hur) to choose life present at hand over historical artefacts under foot.

Art wrestles with this, he comes close to embracing Italia, nearly throwing away the desecrating life overboard. But is he entwined to the underground by an unseverable thread?

I honestly did not know about the tombaroli, making a living off the dead if you will. Came across this just now

"It emerged that the Covid-19 pandemic had offered thieves new opportunities to raid closed archaeological sites, churches and museums for priceless artifacts while police were reassigned to enforce lockdowns. "

I did like the contrast of tombs versus the disused train station abandoned above ground, and then restored to life by Italia.

There are images herein of murmurations of birds, watchful owls and grave paintings getting tainted as the tomb is unsealed. Little gestures of grace. Italia and Arthur work on their sign language was another injection of levity amidst the shadows. Funky electronic soundtrack added there too, again playful.

Along with that there is a variety of music that percolates a relatively slow and enjoyable film.

Carol Duarte is so great as Italia. Dialing back her beauty and leaning into off-key signing, and that quirky dance scene at the instant fiesta at a dirt lot. Something so awkwardly honest in her depiction.

Isabella Rosellini is wonderfully cast as well, and adds both grace and illusion to a crumbling world. Love her commitment to rising auteurs, her father surely must be dancing in his own grave.

The dowsing rod and mystical feel to Arthur when he is in his element. The camera like his world turns upside down.

One possible thing about Rohrwacher's films, I sense she is proud of the earth. Maybe Italian earth above others, maybe the idea of people who are the salt of the earth, maybe something less to do with computers, superheroes and gleaming towers of glass and cement.