A Slow, But Timelessly Made, Drama About Grief That Harkens to Classic Filmmaking
As a big fan of classic Italian cinema, like Fellini and Antonioni and Leone, I was pretty psyched to check out “La Chimera,” especially after you hear about the premise — “Josh O’Connor plays a treasure hunter in 1980s Italy.” I mean c’mon, that sounds awesome!
But the premise, unfortunately, sounds like more fun than the movie actually turns out to be. Instead of the adventure one may imagine, instead we get a gritty, ultimately sad drama that finds O’Connor’s ex-con tomb raider, mourning the death of his lover, searching for solace through his and his gang’s various pilferings and thefts. The concept of an obsession with excavating items from a dead culture pairs well with someone struggling to move on from death and loss, making the movie resonate well thematically, but ultimately the journey is one that’s a little too meandering for me. Maybe that aimlessness is the point, but it just didn’t provide enough narrative propulsion to really keep me hooked.
But MAJOR props to director Alice Rohrwacher for creating an experience that’s uniquely Italian. She undoubtedly has watched a shit ton of classic Italian stuff, because the movie looks like it could have been made in Italy at any point in the last 70 years, that’s how seamlessly she blends in classic strokes of the nation's filmography. That aesthetic devotion, and aforementioned thematic resonance, makes this one worth the watch for sure.