Written by Lola Carver-Bloome, the first entry in the column Off Script.
Looking at the release poster for Alice Rohrwacher’s La chimera, we see an illustration of Arthur (Josh O’Connor) suspended upside down beneath the ground by a red thread tied to his ankle. He is a figure who exists between worlds in many senses: culturally, linguistically, and spiritually in his sensitivity towards the dead. This is a film that is concerned with the spaces in between and to what extent the disparate planes of life and death can reconnect. The translation of the title as meaning an ‘impossible dream’ suggests that perhaps they cannot. In this week’s column, I would like to offer my personal analysis of the film in terms of its exploration of this suspension of history and the liminal spaces in which our central figure exists. The film also raises some interesting questions about the ethics of archaeology and the issues that arise when we force objects of the past into the modern world, which I will touch on too.
La chimera is set in 1980s Tuscany and follows a crumpled British archaeologist, Arthur, who is recently released from prison. He carries with him a supernatural intuition towards the dead, which sees him return to his tombaroli gang and making money by plundering Etruscan tombs for ancient relics. It is ultimately revealed that these relics are being sold through an international art market for wealthy clients. However, the film first begins with a dream sequence in which Arthur sees the memory of his late love, Beniamina (Yile Yara Vianello), who he is consumed with relocating and is connected to by a red thread. The themes of excavation therefore serve a dual purpose and his return to Italy an attempt to unearth an antique of his own. I think that Josh O’Connor portrays this sensitivity extremely well and his performance comes across as very endearing. Returning to our central idea of liminality, there are some great moments of symbolism offered throughout. When Arthur enters a tomb initially, the image on screen is flipped, just as in the aforementioned release poster which depicts him as being suspended with the ground above him. This visual inversion creates a sense of a shift into a spiritual realm once Arthur and his gang cross the sacred threshold.
Moreover, this liminality in which Arthur exists, suspended with life above him and death below, is isolating. The audience views this scene as inverted with only Arthur himself viewing the tomb the right way up. There is a sense that through his role as intermediary figure between the spiritual and the corporeal he is set adrift and cut off from both worlds. He is estranged from Beniamina through her death and the search to find her is only supported by her mother (Isabella Rossellini). Whilst he operates with his tombarli in a comic band of brothers, he is also separate from them in terms of his Englishness and unusual paranormal powers. By becoming a bridge between various worlds, Arthur exists in a liminal, and importantly, solitary space.
However, at the same time, no one seems to question Arthur’s powers, rather they are accepted without a second thought. This is one of the elements of magical realism that I enjoyed about the film, which also plays into these ideas of liminality. The inclusion of seemingly magical powers as the norm, the red thread that remains attached to Beniamina in the dream sequences, all help to position the film somewhere between fantasy and reality (another aspect of the in between).
Once the loots begin, we see how the imposition of the present onto the past is damaging. The immediacy of the decay of the tomb is depicted once light and oxygen enter the space, instantly causing the artwork on the walls and the objects within to both metaphorically and literally fade. The relics within are forced out of the ground and onto the fine art market where they are illegally sold to the rich. Art, and sacred art for that sake, becomes a source of commerce. However, it seems as though the destruction of these objects begins once the tomb is opened in the first place as if the intrusion of the present disturbs the protective remoteness of the past.
These ethical questions are explored in the film by Italia (Carol Duarte) who upon discovering Arthur’s vocation as an illegal grave digger says ‘Tu non sei fatta per gli oocchi delgi uomini’ meaning ‘not made for human eyes’, referring to the looted objects. She holds the belief that the spirit and human worlds must remain separate. Speaking at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival Rohrwacher stated how in making this film she thought about her experiences as a child growing up in Tuscany having an acute understanding of the sense of regional history and the objects left behind excavated by grave diggers common in the 80s and 90s in the region. She spoke about how ‘it goes against the souls of the people who have died, so I wondered how we could depict people who stole from the tombs, who stole these artefacts...the relationship between those who're alive, those who were dead - the relationship between the past and the present.’
Rohrwacher is clearly concerned with the spiritual complications of archaeology, as is Italia in the film, suggesting that the sale of such sacred objects is only the surface of the issue. This links back to ideas of liminality in the sense that Italia, and Rohrwacher through her, finds the overlapping of past and present realms disturbing, whereas Arthur, who floats in between these spaces, may not. In many ways the tombs which Arthur frequents are a literal manifestation of the space in between life and death in that they contain lost markers of those who once were alive. Italia argues that they should remain untouched as a result.
All of these questions lead back to the definition of the film that I mentioned at the start, ‘the impossible dream’. In Arthur’s attempt to find life in places that it has been lost, ancient tombs, his late lover’s hometown, he traps himself in the ultimate chimera whereby he is torn between an existence devoted to the past or truly living in the present. The film ends with a pinnacle of magic realism when Arthur is crushed under a collapsed tomb but escapes by pulling on the red thread attached to Beniamina and they are reunited. The ending is slightly ambiguous as it is hard to discern how far the fantastical elements of the film extend. Has Arthur died and so joined Beniamina in a spirit realm? Or has he managed to enter this world as a result of his paranormal abilities.
I interpreted it more so as he has finally committed to embracing the past. Whether he does this through death is secondary, in my opinion. The red thread snaps in this scene, and I see that as Arthur falling through the liminal space of his existence and finally reuniting with Beniamina in the plane he was always most drawn to. No longer is he suspended in between, as in the poster, he now welcomes the comfort of the past and overcomes the impossibility of his dream.
If you like beautiful shots, a slow pace, and a haunted protagonist, you will love La Chimera. Here are some more recommendations below for similar films:
Happy as Lazzaro (2018) - by the same director!
Cinema Paradiso (1988) - Italian film + nostalgia
Amelie (2001) - if you enjoyed the magic realism elements of La chimera
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