Rohrwacher's latest film is her most essayistic. It is an excavation of inspiration and, yet, inspired by excavation. Following a small group of merry pranksters who happen to perform impromptu anarchistic archeological digs throughout Italy, La Chimera is Rohrwacher examining her own pretence as a filmmaker digging into the past for lost treasure.

Josh O'Connor as Arthur is their ringleader. I've read several reviews who lambast the blank-faced protagonist for not 'emoting enough.' Needless to say, this is Rohrwacher's M.O. and her absolute gift as a director. Just as Lazzaro in Happy As Lazzaro was a kind of cipher, so too, is Arthur. His emotions are an enigma. In true Italian fashion, he is L'Appeso or The Hanged Man. You may project onto him what you will. But he exists suspended (as he does on the poster) between the living and the dead. Between good and evil.

This isn't to say Rohrwacher is some student of Nietszche, where her characters exist beyond good and evil. In fact, there's quite a strong morality woven throughout most of her work. But that being said, this is her most nihilistic. Putting to question value, history and the ethics surrounding it all.

While some demagogues resurrect the past for power, it's almost like the past resurrects Arthur. It speaks to him and he is but the listener, an ear to the ground of the ancient. Why does it speak to Arthur? We don't know. Like Lazzaro, Arthur is like an angel. Divinity speaks through him, but to what end? There is a gaggle of followers, but they appear to follow him only for profit or, perhaps more fairly, survival.

The most perplexing quality of Arthur's is that he isn't afraid of exploiting his fellow people. Take, for instance, a scene where he hustles a local farmer into excavating his land for ancient artifacts. Arthur's followers knows it's a grift, the farmer knows it's a grift, but they let him do it anyway. Because it might mean a bit of money in the end. Resurrecting the past is good business.

At the heart of Rohrwacher is the rich tradition in Italian Neo-realism, where class and history was often the centre focus. Many who critique Rohrwacher's magical realism as a means to make that tradition impure either love their dichotomy between realism (Rossellini, Tarr,) and magic (Fellini, Bunuel) or are simply allergic to the cocktail the combination inspires. Above the form, the question surrounding class and history persists: who owns the past?

La Chimera doesn't necessarily answer this. Though, it does propose the question. There's a particular reason why Rohrwacher cast a British as an Italian. As we know, there were no better grave robbers in history than the British. In fact, The British Museum in conjunction with Vice, just won a Cannes Lion for their app which...yes, documents where they stole everything. It's the equivalent of a thief getting awarded for outlining how they broke into your house.

The second critique against Rohrwacher is always some mumblings of her opaqueness. It's a drag not being bludgeoned to death with intent. A lesser director would cast a blonde-haired blue-eyed Brit and make sure you got the allegory. But La Chimera is offering glimpses into the souls of its characters. It isn't excavating them. Hence the title. We are given glimpses of a man who, perhaps, is stuck in limbo for robbing from the Gods. Even when he captures the Golden Ark - the head from a state of the Etruscan Venus - he can't reap the reward. He must return it from whence it came.

Is this Arthur's lot in life? In that sense, La Chimera is like a re-telling of the story of King Arthur. In that British tale, King Arthur is led with his sword Excalibur in search for the Holy Grail. In this, Arthur is led by a branch (Wands and Swords are common language in Tarot) which guides him to these buried Grails. Like in King Arthur, our leader grapples with the responsibilities of his kingdom within his own circle of knights. These excavations become spells, or maybe tormenting reminders of his long lost love. Worse, he remains fated to have to bring it all back to life. The tragic irony is that Arthur can unearth any ancient Etruscan artifact from history, except for her.

Poetry, most definitely. But is this Alice Rohrwacher making a jab at the British or neo-Colonialism? The idea being that these powers can steal from other people's pasts, but never cultivate their own living breathing entity? Lol I don't know, but you can't help but laugh at the concept. Its third act confronts this idea, just as it confronts notions of ownership. 

We witness a few wealthy auctioneers bidding on the headless statue. Herein lies 
a fitting metaphor for contemporary cinema: the rich bidding on the hard-earned discoveries of the poor. They attempt to behold Venus. Except its a faceless idea of truth. 

It is also, perhaps, a personal examination. Rohrwacher wants to reincarnate the brilliance of Rossellini, Fellini, De Sica, Visconti - symbols of archaic Venusian beauty - and yet she remains in a tomb of her own influence. It appears no one can truly own the past, no matter how much you fall in love with it.

Not enough is said about Rohrwacher as a writer. Here is a director who is writing original and interesting stories which evoke and intersect mythology, sociology and psychology effortlessly. Her ability to craft this strange yet simple story, without it feeling surface, is an achievement onto itself. There is an attitude of reverence for the past and her predecessors through each frame. Like Lazzaro, her works feel timeless in a way.

To say Rohrwacher is one of the most intelligent and mystical directors working today would be an understatement. She’s maybe the only filmmaker on this scale working with the mystical, without the incantations of horror (sorry, Guillermo). She is someone fascinated by mythology. And frankly, that's my jam. There's just something about her choice of stories that speaks to me. While most directors are almost sickly obsessed with sleek modernity or dusty history, facts or post-modern fiction, Rohrwacher has a remarkable ability to cut through the materialism of these conceits.

It doesn't hurt that Helene Louvart is behind the camera the entire time. Even if mythological social critiques don't interest you, La Chimera is the best looking film of the year. The only close contender is Timo Salminen's photography in Fallen Leaves. This is a film that breathes in colour and that speaks in textures. There is a warm fuzzy aesthetic that isn't pastiche, nor minimalist. There's an abundance of grit, dirt and messiness that feels like a 1950s Rosselini film with the compositions of Antonioni, through the lens of Fellini.

In that sense, I understand Rohrwacher's anxieties about unearthing the dead. But, my god, they must be speaking to her.