La Chimera (2023)

Written and directed by Alice Rohrwacher

The past is a wind that blows hard and strong through Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera as a man recently released from a prison stint links back up with his grave robbing cronies while pursued by the specter of a lost love. 

Full of complicated characters and murky morality, Rohrwacher’s film is another keen foray into life on society’s fringes as she once again impresses with her sharp eye for humanity’s capability for both cruelty and kindness, and her ability to evoke both with an askew sensibility. A film about those living in poverty and the exploitative system they’re trapped in, it’s nonetheless spiritual and warm to the touch. 

Arthur (Josh O’Connor) has got a chip on his shoulder. He’s broke, out of jail, looked down upon by the rest of society, and he’s not keen to get back into the business that incarcerated him, which is raiding the many tombs strewn through the Italian countryside, hawking bowls and plates to shady middlemen who then sell them on to illustrious museums and collections the world over. 

Economic inertia soon sees him back to his old ways, however, reuniting him with a motley crew of thieves and Flora, the mother of his lost love. It also introduces him to Italia, a woman taking singing lessons from Flora, but who’s really being exploited by the fickle matriarch. Arthur and Italia enter a gentle courtship and you wonder where all this leads for Arthur, who seems possessed by a certain spirituality that doesn’t jive with the hardened edge of his peers.  

Rohrwacher doesn’t vigorously pursue the many elements of her movie, making it a winding affair lived in life’s margins. Slow to start and drawn out along the middle, La Chimera is a ranging stroll rather than a driven walk. The central ghost story that haunts Arthur is strangely uncared for when it’s meant to be the movie’s anchor, and it makes it feel like a kite in the wind, fluttering around with flourishes without the sense it’s going anywhere. 

Despite its unengaging story, the depth of La Chimera makes it hard to let go of. It gets into the crags of life, and charms you with its cast of characters who are witty acquaintances without pretense. But it’s the dense layering of its many elements that nests in the mind. Community, ownership, fealty, relationships, cultural heritage and its importance in a strapped present – it’s all meted out with such generosity of thought and seeming ease that it cannot help but form an ornate piece of art. 
 
It means La Chimera connects on a tucked-away plane instead of hitting you straight in the dome. Its kindness, gentle pace, and affection for human integrity and connection makes for a slow winning-over that arrives in time. Sometimes you just have to be patient and dig for treasure that doesn’t reveal itself.