La Chimera

Absorbing. Mesmerising. Fantastical. And a man in a white suit….

The Etruscans created another country of the past — they did things differently — and mythically — there.

Alba Rohrwacher wrote, directed and appeared in this movie, and she also does things differently and mythically. It has the aesthetic look of Saltburn, but is more like Pan’s Labyrinth in its storytelling, with some Monty Python thrown in! It’s also a bit Grand Budapest Hotel as all the travellers of a train watch the Englishman and then duck away, apart from a very friendly waggy dog. This won’t be the first or last time he’s watched.

A grumpy, history-loving Englishman Arthur (Josh O’Connor) on a train returns home from prison, and tries to avoid everyone. But this doesn’t work for long because it’s New Year’s Eve and time for a festival…

He also goes to the local decaying villa and hangs out with sympathetic almost mother-in-law Flora (Isabella Rossellini) and her crowd of chattering daughters and grandchildren. She’s coaching Italia (Carol Duarte) to sing — who can’t, and who doubles up as a handy live-in servant instead. (Though never let her iron!) Italia, like Arthur, has her secrets. Like the ancient treasures Arthur can sense underground, secrets are bubbling up to the surface too. Like the seasons, time passes and everything, including hidden truths, have their time.

Underlying the drama is Arthur’s lost-love Beniamina (Yile Yara Vianello), Flora’s daughter, who is frequently mentioned as returning soon, but never does. She’s commemorated by a shrine, which is in itself ominous.

Arthur also has a gift, he can divine hidden treasures — literal buried treasures. He and his friends are tomb robbers, selling to local buyer/connoisseur Spartaco — who they’ve never met. Arthur loves the history of the tombs, his friends — the money. And they celebrate as hard as they excavate.

Time seems to be fluid here. We start, it seems, in modern times, but swiftly move (with the clothes, hair, cars and music into the late 1970s-early ‘80s). Same with Beniamina — Arthur remembers her as a young teenager, but he’s very much an adult male; she’s talked about as though she left yesterday, but some time seems to have passed. Is she even coming back? Even when we glimpse her she seems to keep flitting between ages in front of our eyes — girl to teenager to young woman. There’s even charming fourth-wall breaking from Spartaco’s amused niece.

Similarly time is flouted through squatting and the placing of bowls of catch the drips. Arthur squats in a shack against ancient city/town walls, which gets torn down eventually by the authorities. Italia squats with a happy commune in a railway station, which belongs to no-one and everyone. Time passes, stills and is reversed by the actions of the protagonists.

Italia follows Arthur, busts some moves on the dance floor, and then is appalled when she learns what they all do for a living. Protector of history, she seems to have called the police. Only infact it’s other rival tomb robbers impersonating the polizia to make good on their ground work and recover the find of a life time.

Then there’s the ‘I am Spartaco!’ moment. Not as they seem, the gang encounter Spartaco and Arthur (like his name-sake king) makes a life-changing decision for everyone on a lake. What is seen shouldn’t be. Not to mention the clamour of ghosts and an escape from a labyrinth like Theseus guided by his Ariadne.

Thoughtful, beautiful, genuinely surprising and with a huge shot of romance — one of the best screen kisses — go and see it for the twisty plot and breathtaking ending, of hidden things being brought up into the light, of tombs being broken open as the dead literally return to life.

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