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When we talk about “movie magic,” the first thing that often comes to mind is the bikes achieving liftoff in “E.T.”, but this also applies to Alice Rohrwacher’s wonderful “La Chimera.” , which is a seriously excellent folk tale of a film. He finds his magic buried in the ground.
“Were you dreaming?” a train conductor asks a sleeping Arthur, a distant, moody Briton from Italy, whose name means little more than the cream-colored linen suit he wears. The answer is yes. Vivid memories of Arthur’s dead girlfriend, Benjamina, haunt his dreams and propel him on a strange quest in the underground tombs of Tuscany.
A gloomy spell appears to hang over Arthur, who has the mysterious gift of finding ancient relics. This is the early 1980s. Arthur is returning home from prison for aggravated robbery. His return home is welcomed as a hero’s return by the scruffy, carnival band of Tombaroli – tomb raiders who plunder Etruscan artifacts – who view Arthur more like a prince than a destitute thief. Are. They call him “Ustad”.
With remarkable accuracy, Arthur is able to tell where to dig. In one scene, he takes a small, bent branch as a tool for diving. “La Chimera”, itself, seems to emerge in much the same way – an earthy, mesmerizing buried treasure with a sublime drawing power.
The precise moment when I fell completely in love with “La Chimera” – and it is a very likable film – is an opening montage in which Arthur and his fellow sweepers run across the countryside, across the fields to escape the police. Hide while a folk song is sung about Tombarolo Englishman. “La Chimera,” the third in a loose trilogy for Rohrwacher after “The Wonders” and “Happy as Lazaro,” is his cinema’s most complete realization of “magical neo-realism” to date.
Rohrwacher has a strong fascination with the past. It may have a hold on the present. A huge but very short distance between long ago and today. “Happy as Lazaro” charmingly transports a 19th century farmer into the present day.
“La Chimera” is even more confusing and mournful. The Tombaroli form a merry band, but the shadow of death looms over Arthur’s plight. One of his companions in the film says, “He was looking for a way to the afterlife, which is one of the few direct addresses.”
Arthur and company earn cash by selling the Etruscan goods they excavate. But he is motivated less by money than by a compulsion to reach the dead, to reach Benjamina. How deep will he dig? Will the darkness of the underworld engulf him?
Arthur also occasionally visits Benjamina’s mother, Flora, who, like him, has not yet accepted her daughter’s death. She welcomes him politely and respectfully in the old fashioned way. Flora’s other daughters laugh that she only allows men to smoke in the house.
At his crumbling villa, Arthur meets Italia, a singing student who, according to Flora, is deaf. But she may be the sharpest observer in the film. Italy alone is terrified by grave robbing. In other ways, he is the embodiment of the time that the graves remember. It has been noted that the Etruscans elevated women in society – although this is not the only relic of the past that “La Chimera” brings to the fore today.
In “La Chimera” past and present meet mysteriously. The largest Etruscan discovery – a magnificent underground chamber – has been built on a beach, where there is a factory just below the shoreline. But the film’s even more remarkable exploration is of Arthur’s grieving soul. O’Connor excels in a role that requires the best balance of tangible reality and transcendent myth.
Like many things in “La Chimera,” O’Connor’s performance is fascinating and confusing. You can’t help but wonder how a film can straddle the past and present so seamlessly. The stuff of fairy tales – a kind of magic of storytelling – is what Rohrwacher herself wants to highlight. “Were you dreaming?” Good question.
“La Chimera,” a Neon release, is not rated by the Motion Picture Association. In Italian with English subtitles. Running time: 133 minutes. Four out of four stars.
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