La Chimera review – Alice Rohrwacher’s curious excavation of death and memory

It could be seen as a bit on the nose for someone in the throes of grief to only be skilled at scavenging around the tombs of lost peoples, but thankfully Alice Rohrwacher understands that what’s ironic can also be deeply sad. The Italian filmmaker, who has premiered at Cannes with all four of her films so far, is playful with both her camera and her characters’ hearts, letting them search blindly against gorgeous vistas for purpose and connection. After a sweet but thin diversion into shorts (La Pupille was nominated for Best Live Action Short at this year’s Oscars), she returns to what she’s best at – steadily paced dramas equally interested in life’s bewitching vitality and our cultural, human fixation with death.

In La Chimera, Arthur (Josh O’Connor) is an English treasure hunter who, along with a band of Italian misfits and bumpkins, earns his keep by tracking down Etruscan tombs (dating from pre-Roman Italy) and raiding the ornate trinkets, pottery, and jewellery kept with their remains to get them into the afterlife. Arthur’s just been released from prison, and his broken, accented Italian and short temper are clearly an obstacle for him connecting with new and old friends. O’Connor’s performance is almost pizzicato in nature, with sudden, short bursts of energy that feel like they’ve been forcibly tugged out of him.

Rohrwacher, along with cinematographer Hélène Louvart, have opted for a restless visual palette; the film print crackles with rich colour and the camera moves with effortless but assured grace, sometimes even calling the attention of characters who are able to address the audience. The frame will often shift to showcase Arthur’s fluid emotional state: when he stands over a buried tomb feeling a rush of disorientation, Rohrwacher inverts the image so it’s upside down; when Arthur dreams of his late beloved Beniamina, the footage is Super 8.

Rohrwacher’s script (co-written by Carmela Covino and Marco Pettenello) may lack urgency for stretches, content to languish in the Bohemian pleasures of Arthur’s gang’s lifestyle, but the threads that weave through it are compelling. Italia (Carol Duarte), a music student of Beniamina’s mother Flora (Isabella Rossellini), has covertly snuck her two children into the house she lodges in without Flora noticing because she needs to house them, but is shaken at the cultural violations Arthur does with tombs.

There’s a clear division between land that’s owned by the people and that which is owned by the state, one that Rohrwacher is keen to investigate, but it’s her gentle but curious prodding around death and memory that proves the most rewarding – especially in La Chimera’s breath-catching final minutes. Rohrwacher’s film unearths poignant, fiercely felt emotions, handling them with all the attentive delicacy of an archaeologist digging up the past.

La Chimera was screened as part of the Cannes Film Festival 2023. A UK release date is yet to be announced.