La — Chimera Repack

Isabella Rossellini plays Flora, a former opera singer and the mother of the lost Beniamina. Her home is a chaotic ruin filled with peacocks and piano keys. She represents the crumbling aristocracy, but also the memory of the woman Arthur cannot find. Their relationship is tender and traumatic—a mother grieving a daughter, a lover refusing to finish mourning.

Beneath its fairytale-like surface, the film offers a critique of patriarchy and machismo, focusing instead on care for the earth and all living beings.

Set in the 1980s in a fictionalized version of Tuscany, the story follows a gang of tombaroli (tomb raiders) who pillage ancient graves for profit. While his companions seek wealth, Arthur is haunted by his own "chimera"—a lost love named Beniamina.

Perhaps the Chimera is not a monster to be slain, but a part of us—the part that insists there is something else beneath the surface. Whether you come to La Chimera for Josh O’Connor’s raw performance, the breathtaking cinematography, or the haunting score by Apparat, you will leave with dirt under your fingernails and a tear in your eye.

Watch for the color red. It is the thread of Ariadne guiding us through this labyrinth. The red string on Arthur’s dowsing rod. The red feathers on a hat. The red paint on a wall. Red is the color of life, of menstrual blood, of the umbilical cord. It is the connection between Italy’s ancient matriarchal roots and the present.

by Sebastiano Vassalli : A historical novel set in the 17th century about a young woman accused of witchcraft, known for its vivid portrayal of superstition and social environment in rural Italy. Pull the Red Thread: On Alice Rohrwacher's “La chimera”