On January 1, 2024, alongside potential box office hits like «Serf 2» and «The Bremen Town Musicians», a small, almost unnoticed film from the Cannes Film Festival program is released in Russian theaters. In our article, we explain why you should pay...

A young Englishman named Arthur (Josh O’Connor) is on a train, his white suit more gray, and the whole carriage laughs at his socks and their smell. Angry, he returns to a small Italian village where he was arrested by the police for plundering Etruscan tombs. In a familiar but not native place, no one waits for him except a plywood "home," his accomplice friends, and grandmother Flora (Isabella Rossellini). However, a peaceful life is not to be expected—his magical gift leads the archaeologist down the path of illegal sales.

1. Catch the tranquility

– incredibly calm cinema. The charm and appeal of the film are due to cinematographer Hélène Louvart, who used film instead of digital camera. She added an old photograph effect to the picture, which you can "touch" and use as a good memory of the past. The pleasant soundtrack also sets the mood, for example, it includes two very sad but funny songs by Arthur's gang's "bards," performed on a broken guitar and triangle.

Anastasia Sviridova

«La Chimera» – an underrated Cannes miracle

We talk about the film «La Chimera», the new work of Italian director Alice Rohrwacher, which did not receive Cannes awards but won the hearts of audiences.

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2. See how ordinary people live in Italian villages

Thinking of Italy, bright sun, architecture, and food come to mind, but the film shows a completely different side. Poor, spiritually and physically destroyed, it seems to exist on its last breath. In a country torn by the economic and political crisis of the 1980s, there remain ruined mansions, one of which Flora cannot (or does not want to) leave. She herself gives tours of an empty train station and tries to cling to the smallest memories of the old life. Arthur's friends, as youth condemned for dishonest work, are also important. They participate in grotesque street "festivals," dressing as women and riding a tractor, finding joy in little things, like overcooked spaghetti with the simplest sauce.

3. Get out children's archaeology books

In the meditative film, the main driving force becomes the excavation episodes. They add novelty and sophistication to «La Chimera», because despite their dirty work, Arthur and his team encounter wonders buried underground. Watching this, you involuntarily become inspired and dive deeper and deeper into the film.

4. Immerse yourself in the real world of wonders

The astonishing combination of mysticism and realism is characteristic of director Alice Rohrwacher's films. If in the previous Cannes success «Happy as Lazzaro» there were manipulations with time and pseudo-medievalism, then in «La Chimera» it is a subtle connection between the mythical beginning and the gift with which Arthur finds burials. And his story resembles the myth of Orpheus, who descends underground, into the kingdom of the dead, to find his beloved.

5. Enjoy memories of past love

Nostalgia for a bygone past is one of the main themes of the film, but it is especially important for understanding the main character. Love for a girl, whose fate is not told, and her image itself is quite vague and metaphorical. In his memories, she appears as the heroine of the myth of the Minotaur—Ariadne, from whom, by the way, a thin beautiful thread also comes, and he follows this trail. These memories, like memories of the beautiful Italy of the past, do not let him go and weigh him down, because in the pursuit of what is gone, nothing else can be expected.

The most important reason why «La Chimera» deserves attention is its simplicity, incredible love of life manifested in small things. The film exists beyond the language barrier, and even without knowing Italian, it is not difficult to understand, and the problems of the small settlement's residents are very similar to ours. Perhaps in this similarity lies the secret of the film, and the changes of the "new" Italy of the eighties give hope for something kinder, more sincere?

Italian trailer for the film «La Chimera»: