Italian Cinema: La Chimera review

La Chimera is the latest film by Alice Rohrwacher and stars Josh O'Connor as an archeologist haunted by the past in 1980s Italy.

Spoilers ahead.

In La Chimera, myths are magically realised on screen. Arthur wanders across Italy in search of his lost lover, Benimina. He is the Orpheus to her Eurydice. He plumbs the depths of tombs, raking through dirt on a promise that always remains out of reach. He cannot enter the underworld and reclaim her. Also, it must be noted that in some versions of the myth, Orpheus ties a string around Eurydice’s ring finger to remind her of her love for Orpheus while she is in the underworld. String is, therefore a symbol of memory, of how we are literally tied to one another even after death.

Another famous myth that is brought to mind both literally and figuratively is that of Theseus and the Minotaur, in which Ariadne helps Theseus escape the dangerous labyrinth with a thread. At the close of the film, Arthur is trapped in a collapsed tomb, and it could be suggested that his melancholic disposition throughout the film is a sort of psychological maze that he can finally escape once he finds the red thread that leads him back to Benimina.

The read thread unravelling from Benimina’s knitted dress.

Arthur sees a tunnel of light leading him out of the sealed tomb and towards Benimina. Death?

The film's stock and lighting make it feel like a dream, fable, or fairytale, which is only furthered by the use of magical realism and superstition, such as when Arthur encounters ghosts on a train, how he uses a stick to find treasure and of course the aforementioned allusions to mythology.

The scenes with the Tombaroli (grave robbers) feel like a travelling troupe of clowns or actors (breaking the 4th wall and all!). For much of the film, you want to be near them, to be a part of this community, and to feel the ecstasy of discovering these ancient artefacts right up until the illusion is shattered. This comes when a beautiful ancient temple is discovered underground; as they unseal this sacred place, the air of the 1980s seeps in and destroys the fresco's immaculate colouration, leaving them duller and spoilt. The temple's centrepiece, a mesmerising statue of Artume, is also decapitated, furthering the symbolism of how destructive greed is.

Early scenes of the Tombaroli reach an almost Bachaenalia level of revelry. 

Brutal decapitation of a statue - this desicration shows the true colours of the Tombaroli

May Film and TV Wrap up

This month I watched some great movies and a couple of awesome TV Shows.

Film Review: Darren Aronofsky's The Whale

The Whale is directed by Darren Aronofsky and stars Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink and Hong Chou. The film follows morbidly obese English Teacher Charlie as he reconnects with his estranged daughter. It is based on the play of the same name written by Samuel D. Hunter, who also wrote the screenplay.

It goes without saying that The Whale is led by a tour de force performance from Brendan Fraser. He inhabits the role of Charlie completely, and through him, we see so much sorrow and tenderness that the film just becomes so emotionally overwhelming. There are scenes nearly impossible to watch, namely the binge eating scenes, which is triggering for anyone who has suffered from not only binge eating but any sort of addiction.

It’s also heartbreaking to watch him interact with his daughter and the defensive cruelty that comes with each interaction and then the deep love his friend and nurse Liz has for him, which is bogged down by shared past trauma and the very one-sided nature of their relationship. These complex performances from Sadie Sink and Hong Chou add a whole other dramatic texture to the film and also add to the agony of Charlie’s spiralling despair.

I need to know that I have done one right thing with my life!

The choice to use a 4:3 ratio powerfully reflects the claustrophobia of the setting and the protagonist's psyche; in essence, Charlie is trapped in his apartment and in his body. Furthermore, the use of such a dark and gloomy colour palette only heightens this oppressive framing to make the film both thematically and visually heavy.

Transit Film Review

Transit is a film of many layers, it’s about immigration, fascism, the transience of time and the nightmare of bureaucracy. It is Petzold’s final film in his unofficial ‘love in the time of oppression’ trilogy (Barbara and Phoenix being the other two). Transit stars Franz Rogowski and Paula Beer as spectral immigrants trying to flee France before it is overtaken by Fascism.

Petzold fascinatingly uses Anna Seghers novel of the same name but transposes it to the modern-day rather than the ’40s, creating an anachronistic film that belongs simultaneously in the past and the present, like ghosts if you will. The novel is very symbolic for the director as he was introduced to it many years ago by his friend, mentor and collaborator Harun Farocki and while I haven’t read the novel just yet (I will for sure after seeing the movie twice!) I can tell that his interpretation of the novel is respectful.

“Wer vergisst schneller? Der Verlassene oder die, die ihn verlassen hat?“

"Who forgets faster? The abandoned or the one who left him?”

Many of Petzold’s films deal with transit, he has his characters often on physical journeys that lead them to moments of self-discovery, but perhaps Transit is his most literal and obvious mediation on the idea. Characters are stuck between freedom and certain destruction and as such, they drift around the port city of Marseille like spectres and perhaps non more so than Paula Beer’s Marie Weidel.

She is a woman searching for her writer husband that she abandoned, but out of guilt (and to get a ticket out of there!), she starts looking for him. She rushes around the city always wearing the same coat and very similar clothes almost as if she herself is haunting the place, that she is already beyond the realm of the living. Rogowski’s Georg encounters her several times, often because she has mistaken him as her husband, which is ironic because he has stolen her husband’s identity after the writer committed suicide. What occurs is a cycle of guilt for both characters and they slowly grow closer over the three weeks they are stuck in limbo at Marseille, but there is always a barrier between them.

I watched the film twice in close succession and I definitely found I preferred it on the re-watch, everything including subtext and symbolism sunk in just that little bit more on the second time around. I wonder if it will get even better with the third watch…

October Wrap Up: Books, TV Shows and Movies

Did I watch Squid Game? Yes, like the rest of the universe, I'm sure even our alien neighbours in Alpha Centauri sat down and binged the Netflix drama. Let me know in the comments whether you're the only human on earth not to have watched it!

I also talk about the books I read, the TV shows that got me through the month and whether or not Denis Villeneuve’s Dune lived up to my expectations or not as a book reader - click here to read my full Dune Book Review.