"La Chimera" decries tombaroli, grave robbers, looting archeological treasures

Italian director Alice Rohrwacher avoids cinematic clichés, forging a unique blend of complex characters in unusual circumstances and settings. She’s true to form in her latest film, “La Chimera,” Rohrwacher’s critical assessment of a band of tombaroli, grave robbers in an eccentric 1980s Tuscan community. The foreigner Arthur and his Italian colleagues propel the narrative with unanticipated twists and turns.

Pushing us out of a relaxed comfort zone, Rohrwacher includes characters’ direct-address to the camera, singers and dancers presenting alternative perspectives, and magical realism interwoven with Italy’s signature cinematic neo-realism. All of this lodges within a diverse community that collaborates with corrupt looters. Also on hand, on their yacht, greedy, illegal resellers of archeological treasures host high-rollers and museum representatives indifferent to the cultural heritage they exploit.

Here the title “Chimera” means a fantasy, an illusion, an unrealizable dream, something beyond reach. It is that and more for the British Arthur whose lost love Beniamina he seeks, similar to the Greek myth of Orpheus seeking Eurydice. He’ll connect with Beniamina’s mother in her crowded, hectic villa. Meantime, amidst poverty, the tombaroli follow Arthur who hunts with a divining rod, a magical figure to some.     

Writer and director, Rohrwacher describes this assembly as “disparate threads, as in in an oriental tapestry.” At Telluride where I first saw “La Chimera” as part of a tribute to Rohrwacher, she said the appeal of cinema lies in its ability to connect with the brain, not only to entertain our emotions. She expressed her respect and awe for the secret lives and hidden treasures found in tombs two thousand years old, the past informing the present. And she asked, how now do people think they have the right to take something so sacred? “La Chimera” interrogates those individuals and the fever pitch such looters experience.

Cinematographer Hélène Louvart’s cinematography brings this impoverished world to vivid life, altering lighting and compositions to communicate clarity or claustrophobia. Josh O’Connor as Arthur and Isabelle Rossellini as Beniamina’s mother Flora deliver captivating performances, the former largely silent, the mother verbose. This is a film with an important message about valuing the past and ethical behavior in the present. In Italian with English subtitles, “La Chimera” is screening now. Check listings.