“Chimera”: Italian variation of Indiana Jones

Another Cannes novelty will appear in the Russian New Year’s box office: Aliche Rohrwacker’s film “Chimera” will be released, in which the classic film image of the black digger takes on a new meaning. The main character – a gentle variation of Indiana Jones – plunders ancient graves and suffers for his dead beloved in sunny Tuscany.

Text: Vasily Stepanov

Brooding Arthur (Josh O’Connor), wearing a white suit and smelly socks, returns home from prison. At home is her English mother Flora (Isabella Rossellini), who lives in a time-worn palazzo with a singing assistant named Italia. At home are old friends with whom Arthur robbed ancient graves, for which, in fact, he sat down. Homes are broken hopes and dreams that are so difficult, but need to be put back together.

Once in his native walls, Arthur soon returns to his old ways: walking around the area with a vine in his hands (he has the gift of dowsing, he is always in touch with the earth), looking for treasures, which, on his instructions, his accomplices almost dig up with their hands – this is how they appear on light of God objects of forgotten antiquity: a bronze bell, an oil lamp, a phallus with wings, dishes. So you can find something bigger – for example, a statue, sell it to the museum before the carabinieri arrive, and get rich. But what is found brings neither happiness nor wealth. Either because it’s still a shameful thing to be an Italian Indiana Jones and steal from the dead, even from the ancient Etruscans. Or maybe it’s just fate: it’s not for nothing that Arthur is depicted on the film poster as a hanged man from a Tarot card.

This card, as you know, speaks of anticipation and insight, of the sacrifice that must be made in order to move forward. The Hanged Man most often sacrifices himself and his present. Therefore, it seems that the lasso of the hanged man, who is being pulled down to the origins, also fell to the author of the film, Alicia Rohrwacker. After “Happy Lazarus,” this is already the second directorial work in which Rohrwacker plunges into cinema as into the still water of history. “Chimera” is a film of archaism and excavations purer than those in which its protagonist is engaged. And the point, of course, is not only that the hero-diggers exist somewhere outside of time, in the conventional eighties. And in the very structure and conflicts of the film, which are far from the modern neurotic fixation on the immediate. In addition, Rohrwacker’s fascination with film is again surprising. On the screen – seething grain, torn frames without porridge. To film experts and cinephiles, Rohrwacker proudly demonstrates the rounded corners of the frame, in which some kind of special fetishism, an obsession with analog media, is felt. And in places, in flashbacks, as if emphasizing the film’s tactile handicraft, she even switches from 35mm film to 16mm. In general, we can say that this is a “grandmother’s movie”, without in any way detracting from its amazing lacy beauty.

Rohrwacker, as the Krovostok group sang, “was tired of being modern, I wanted to be like an ancient one.” And film archaism allows her to speak the film language of the past, donning the armor of Fellini and the Taviani brothers. Fortunately, the modernist techniques, symbolism and metaphor in her performance do not seem so ponderous and overly pretentious. The radiant “Chimera” is not as pathetic as the aforementioned “Lazarus”. It is logical that around Arthur, crouching to the ground in search of his grail – the dead blue-eyed lover Benjamina (Ile Vianello), a group of round tables gathers, and Italy can serve visiting Englishmen not only history lessons, but also coffee; they have been coming here for centuries to enjoy the ancient past, and have long since switched from their boring language to divine Italian (the Englishman in the Apennines is a separate big movie plot). It is also clear that everyone has chimeras, and a passion for archeology is ideal for the cinematic interpretation of the desire (and perhaps the need) to delve deeply into oneself. Isn’t this what Luca Guadagnino’s youth hit “Call Me by Your Name” was about, where young Timothée Chalamet pulled out a stone deity from the bottom of the sea?

Rohrwacker in Chimera is old-fashioned and ironic, but, importantly, extremely attentive to the beauty that her camera captures. And those who are unable to decipher the film’s cheap puzzles will be happy to peer into the Tuscan landscapes. Or in the faces of the actors – this author’s casting is always excellent, and the same Josh O’Connor, familiar to the general public primarily for his role as the young Prince Charles in the series “Crown”, blooms under the Italian sun, like a stick stuck in fertile soil. Yes, in our troubled times, the Italian region is not particularly accessible to the Russian public, so you can find your solace in “Chimera”. Rohrwacker clearly asserts with his films that Italy, despite all the machinations of time, never changes. In all eras it will remain approximately the same – affably busy, careless and ancient, like its graves. And you just need to live to one day be convinced of this without the medium of cinema.

In theaters from January 1

---

Subscribe to Weekend channel in Telegram