LA CHIMERA - ITALIAN CINEMA'S LATEST GEM

I have now twice viewed the latest film from Alice Rohrwacher - the Italian director with the most German of names, and am in absolute awe. Throughout the first viewing I sensed something magical at work in the movie and in myself. While I frequently laugh and/or cry, or yell at the screen watching movies, it takes a special film for me to notice that I'm smiling so much my face almost hurts.  La Chimera is that movie.  

I remember admiring and even loving Rohrwacher's earlier work - The Wonders (2014) and Happy As Lazzaro (2018), but this, for me, is her best work so far. 

Visually arresting Rohrwacher has given La Chimera it's own universe - one that moves effortlessly between stark (but never dull) reality, fantasy, magical realism, and even absurdist comedy more accepted in literature and opera than cinema. As an avid opera lover - and particularly a lover of the works of Monteverdi, La Chimera jumped out at me in a way that I've not yet read in any review.  It happens within the first few moments of the opening scene, when the first music we hear is the fanfare from Monteverdi's Orfeo - the earliest known still regularly performed opera today, and it instantly served as a clue, this was going to have some ties to the Orpheus legend. Indeed, in its way, it is a sort of retelling of it, or at least heavily influenced by it.  

La Chimera also reminded me of Wim Wender's American film Paris, Texas in several ways, which, unlike my Orfeo discovery, I've now read in several other reviews. There are similarities, yes, but they seem more coincidental than influenced, and plenty of other directors pre-and-post Wenders have this in common.

The story elements in a nutshell: A British archeologist, Arthur, recently released from prison for tomb raiding, returns to Italy, and is on a train in search of his missing girlfriend, Beniamina. There is some trouble and the first bit of magical realism prepares us for what's to come - or may come.  Arthur arrives at the home of Flora, Beniamina's mother, (an absolutely magical performance from Isabella Rossellini), and her brood of loud, selfish daughters, who made me instantly think of harpies. We are also introduced to Italia, Flora's sadsack, talentless maid and voice student. Italia is an incredibly written character and Carol Duarte - who reminded me of a young Hildegard Behrens - infuses it with a lifeforce that is gently electrifying - which sounds like an odd combination, but there it is.

Rohrwacher has a brilliant eye for visual texture and its layers are imprinted throughout the entirety of La Chimera. Whether within the confines of a narrow train, the rundown ramshackle slum Arturo lives in surrounded by ragpickers and junkies, Flora's crumbling mansion, the sea and landscape, an abandoned train station turned into a home, or the chill and darkness of the caves that feel like hell, the visual richness of every scene adds immeasurably to this director's magnificent storytelling. 

At the center of all of this is the performance of Josh O'Connor as Arthur. With a minimum of dialogue, O'Connor's Arthur conveys the anger, angst, the bitterness of one having taken the fall for his wild associates, his aching longing for Euridice - I mean Beniamina - the headstrong confidence and determination - even in despair that he will find her and bring her back, like Orfeo.  For almost the entirety of La Chimera Arthur is clad in a plain white suit becoming, like his character, more soiled, dirty, and frayed, as he wends his way through the story. This costume decision feels more operatic than cinematic, and further ties together these two arts. 

I can't write more without destroying the incredible elements that make up this wondrous story of love, loss and redemption, but want to comment further on the use of music in La Chimera.  Along with the Monteverdi excerpts, there is a parade through the village with an "oom-pah" Italian band playing Noi siamo zingarelle from Flora's party in Verdi's La Traviata - as it accompanies a flatbed truck filled with drag queens and revelers. There are also several points where the villagers break into song, dance, and one particularly brilliant, magical moment, where soprano Edita Gruberova's beautiful recording of Mozart's Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio!  morphs from being part of the soundtrack into an actual element of the movie - more on that I will not say.  

La Chimera is easily one of the most beautiful films I've seen this year - or in many years.  Audience reactions have been mixed because - well, it IS a strange movie when compared with so-called "standard" Hollywood fare. Critics on the other hand, have been going over the top in extolling the virtues of this glorious celebration of cinema.  Sadly, box office in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico totalled only $950k, so . . . clearly American audiences aren't interested. Fortunately La Chimera is streaming on a number of services, and Hulu offers it gratis on its subscription service. 

Rohrwacher has made an absolute dream of a movie - and even though the year isn't out yet, it goes towards the top of what will be my favorites of 2024.