THEin Chimera by Alice Rohrwacher, broadcast tonight at 9.40 pm on Rai 3is the Love story between an archaeologist with a lost soul and an unattainable woman. The background of the story is an Italian landscape, between modernity and fairy tale, which brings with it all the nostalgic energy of a lost Arcadia. In the cast an excellent male protagonist, Josh O’Connor (Challengers) and a very good and unusual Isabella Rossellini (Conclave).
The chimeraplot of the film Tonight 29 August on Rai 3
The film is set in the 80s of the twentieth century in the village of Riparbella, in Tuscia. On the train to Tuscany there is A young English manvery thin and with a criminal white dress, which sleeps deeply. Is called Arthur (Josh O’Connor) and is just out of prison. Served a few years for theft and receiving stolen goods of ancient finds.
He is a former archeology scholar who has lost everything and He returns to the place where he was arrested. A place divided into two, among the fumes of the new industries and bucolic landscapes. To welcome him There is a heterogeneous group of colorful characters, His former Tombaroli band. They live on expedients, between some agricultural work and the illegal trade in Etruscan worksoften stolen at night in the excavations of the superintendency.
During one of these inspections, they were discovered e They left Arthur alone to blame themselves. For this reason, he does not know whether to resume contacts or go away. But go where? Even if it is a foreigner here, as the inhabitants of Riparbella always call it, this is the only place that could call home.
As, He decides to resume his little honorable activity as a receiver of archaeological finds, So it shows an out of the ordinary talent, not only because of academic knowledge. Arthur has a mysterious gift: Using a simple rhabomanger wand, he manages to identify the areas empty under the ground, sign of the safe presence of buried artifacts, belonging to the Etruscan civilization over 2,000 years ago.
Josh O’Connor and the cast of “La Chimera” (Neon / Curtesy Everett Collection)
The chimera: Arthur, Italy and Beniamina
The stolen objects are resold in Spartacoa the merchant that nobody knows, at a really low price. Arthur is as if it were disinterested in the gain compared to the challenge of discovery.
Thus, he lives in the day among the barracks of his colleagues of raids, with a bewildered attitude and often not changing his dress. His only point of reference is Flora (Isabella Rossellini), An elderly aristocratic singing teacher which he met before he was arrested. The woman lives in a large ruin dwelling and He is Beniamina’s mother (Yile Vianello), Arthur’s lost loveescaped some time ago and now deceased in unclear circumstances. He dreams of it at night, imagines in a real way that he embraces her, chasing the red thread that binds them indissolublely.
Things change when you meet Italy (Carol Duarte), The waitress of Flora, Then he hunted by the woman when this fuck that he hid two children in the house. A feeling is born between them which could bring to the world Arthur. However, she does not appreciate her questionable work. When the gang fortunately finds a tomb chamber containing a beautiful statue of Dea, Italy threatens to report them.
To reiterate again destiny thinks about it Spartaco, That deceives everyone by taking the booty away. Actually, the mysterious lesser is a German recipe (Alba Rohrwacher). Faced with these events, Arthur has a gesture of pride. Struck by the aesthetic and metaphorical beauty of the goddess, instead of delivering the head of the statue, taken away during the escape, he throws it into the lake.
Despite the glow of a new existence with Italy, the past of Arthur has not yet become a foreign land. The man cannot resist the call of the earth and, with another band, Back for a last excavation, The most frightening and wonderful of all. And in the end he will have to make a choice? Italy or darling?
The chimera: the review
The works of the director Alice Rohrwacher are often divisive. Either you love them very much, or you are almost annoyed by the many references to the Pasolini cinema, to characters at Fellini and atmospheres out of the world. On the other hand, style and vision that many foreign critics define joy “Italian magical neorealism” create poetic universes and very deep that they affect for beauty images and the complexity of the message.
A magic enhanced by splendid photography of Hélène Louvart And the choice to change the images in order to evoke, with lights and colors, different eras such as a room of wonders. The chimera ideally closes the memory trilogy and does so Speaking of women even with an absolute male protagonist.
An ideal intersection between the Orpheus mythological or a Orlando Furioso That, more than towards the moon, is about to face the abysses of the earth for love. A man literally suspended – or rather, hanging – Between the earthly world of transformed things and supernatural hemisphere. To move the mysterious threads of his existence is still a woman, materially lost but found in dreams. A love that has fled away, that does not return and takes place only in the inevitable passage between two worlds.
Josh O’Connor in “La Chimera” (01Distribution)
The cast, the meaning of the film
What is the chimera of the title? An ideal love, a lost feelingthe perennial feeling of living waiting for something that manages to fill the void of waiting for promises not kept. A blunder or a comfort that leads to spasmodic search for a meaning that is not yet possible to reveal.
To complete the beauty of the story he thinks about it Josh O’Connor. The actor who perfectly portrayed the young prince Charles of England in The Crown, gives the character of Arthur the wrinkled melancholy of a private man from lovea feverish mood as a card player in continuous search for more and more. To report the delicious Isabella Rossellini, Perfect in incarnate the beauty touched by the memories that pass and do not stop.