La Chimera Jun 2026
La Chimera solidifies Alice Rohrwacher’s status as one of the most vital voices in contemporary world cinema. Alongside her previous works, The Wonders and Happy as Lazzaro , this film completes a loose trilogy exploring the loss of traditional, rural Italian identity to the relentless march of modernity.
Director Alice Rohrwacher and her cinematographer, Hélène Louvart, create a unique visual language for the film, employing a blend of film formats—including 16mm and 35mm—and often breaking the fourth wall. This creates a dreamlike, hazy, and sometimes chaotic atmosphere that feels grounded in earthy reality while simultaneously hinting at the magical.
The Chimera was the monstrous offspring of Typhon and Echidna, figures representing the raw, untamed forces of creation, and the sibling of other legendary beasts like the Hydra and Cerberus. This terrifying creature was sent to ravage the lands of Lycia in Anatolia, destroying entire kingdoms. In desperation, King Iobates ordered the young hero Bellerophon to slay the beast, expecting the mission to be a death sentence. Riding the winged horse Pegasus, Bellerophon engaged the Chimera in aerial combat. Standard arrows proved useless against her fiery breath, so he devised a clever strategy: he attached a lump of lead to his spear and thrust it into the creature's throat. Her own fiery breath melted the lead, which flowed down her throat and burned her insides, killing her instantly. Bellerophon's victory cemented his status as one of the great heroes of Greek myth.
The film’s secret heart, however, is not Arthur’s grief but Italia’s stubborn life. Italia is a young mother, a former opera singer with a voice that cracks beautifully. She lives in the same villa as Arthur, raising her daughter and caring for Beniamina’s aging, blind mother, Flora (Isabella Rossellini in a masterclass of quiet devastation). Where Arthur is turned entirely toward the past, Italia is furiously, imperfectly present. She washes clothes. She chases chickens. She sings to her baby in the dark. La Chimera
Alice Rohrwacher's 2023 film La Chimera blends realism with magical elements to follow a dejected English archaeologist (Josh O'Connor) navigating the 1980s Italian underworld of tomb raiding, or tombaroli . The critically acclaimed film is recognized for its unique visual texture, created through mixed film formats to explore themes of loss and the blurred lines between the past and present. For a detailed critique, read The Guardian's review .
The film moves in disorienting jumps. Characters burst into Neapolitan songs. The aspect ratio shifts. Time collapses. This is intentional. Rohrwacher wants us to feel like Arthur: unmoored, caught between the present and a past that refuses to stay buried.
Directed by Alice Rohrwacher, this film follows Arthur (Josh O'Connor), a British archaeologist with a supernatural gift for sensing Etruscan tombs. The Narrative: Set in 1980s Tuscany, Arthur joins a ragtag group of La Chimera solidifies Alice Rohrwacher’s status as one
La Chimera (2023), directed by Alice Rohrwacher, is a moody, lyrical drama that blends archaeology, romance, and existential yearning into a quietly mesmerizing portrait of dislocation and reconstruction. Set in the Italian countryside near Rome, the film follows a young Englishman named Arthur (played by Josh O’Connor) who drifts through a life of aimless labor and furtive treasure-hunting, gradually surrendering to the fragile possibility of connection and meaning.
The film explores the friction between sacred history and capitalist exploitation. The Etruscan treasures were made for the dead, not for human eyes, posing a moral dilemma when dug up for profit.
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What makes La Chimera so profound is its treatment of the past. In a modern world of concrete apartment blocks and sterile train stations, the Etruscan tombs are cathedrals of color and life. When Arthur breaks through the dirt into a sealed tomb, the camera lingers on the frescoes—vivid paintings of banquets, dancers, and blue demons. The dead, Rohrwacher suggests, lived better than we do.
Arthur’s obsession with finding Beniamina mirrors his archaeological pursuit, a "chimera" that keeps him trapped in the past.
The Chimera (also spelled Chimaera or Chimaira) was a fearsome, fire-breathing female monster. As described by Homer in the Iliad , she was a singular creature: in the fore part a lion, in the hinder a serpent, and a goat in between, with all three heads spewing flames. She is often depicted with a lion's head, a goat's head rising from her back, and a serpent for a tail.