La Chimera (2023)
Directed by Alice Rohrwacher
Written by Alice Rohrwacher
Starring Josh O'Connor, Carol Duarte, Vincenzo Nemolato
Release Date December 6th, 2023
Published December 15th, 2023
The great catch up continues with a film that made a splash at the Cannes Film Festival back in May of this year. La Chimera tells the story of an English Archaeologist who falls in with a group of grave robbers in a small Italian village. As we join the story, the archaeologist is fresh out of jail after having been arrested for robbing a grave and selling the stolen treasure. Arthur, the archaeologist, played by Josh O'Connor, wants to leave the life of a grave robber behind but finds himself drawn back into this criminal world out a lack of being able to do anything else.
Arthur is disgraced, an ex-pat, the only people he knows are the grave robbers who recruited and befriended him years ago. Without them, his only tether to the world is the loving mother of his late, missing, ex-girlfriend Beniamina. Is Beniamina dead? Has she just wandered off on her own, as her mother hopes and believes, the movie will answer this question eventually. Meanwhile, as Arthur tries to find a way to avoid going back to jail, he finds himself drawn to Italia (Carole Duarte), a student of Beniamina's mother who also acts as a servant to the elderly woman and her gaggle of unforgiving daughters.
Italia is carrying a secret. While staying in this decaying mansion as student and servant, she's also hiding her two children in one of the many, many rooms in this ancient home. She has a baby and a pre-teen and seems to pick up strays as the movie goes along. Arthur, being a bit of a stray himself, might have a place to land with Italia if he can give up his grave robbing. Arthur seems to want to quit but he's also drawn to the remarkable and incredible works of art that are buried with those who died in the Ancient Italian Etruscan era. Even while he was imprisoned, Arthur dreamed about the items he'd pulled out of the ground and kept for himself, his last connections to his time as a legitimate archaeologist.
That Arthur returns to the life of a grave robber out of a sense of inertia. He desires change but his grief and his disconnection from the world as he hoped to have it, leads him to the path of least resistance, a life that welcomes him, favors him, a rare place in the world where he is respected. Arthur has a strange talent. He can locate a grave filled with treasure using dowsing. Dowsing is a mostly debunked form of locating things underground. For the purpose of the movie, whether Arthur is a bit of a con man or if he genuinely has a magical talent, he using a stick to point to a place in the ground where treasure is located. It just also happens to a place where death is located.
Find my full length review at Geeks.Media
