🌿 Without giving away the ending: the film closes on a vertical line—up or down, sky or soil, life or death. And in that choice, Rohrwacher suggests that the only real chimera might be the belief that we can ever go back.
In the sun-bleached, grit-covered landscape of 1980s Tuscany, a man in a rumpled white linen suit wanders through tall grass, a dowsing rod in hand. This is Arthur, the melancholy heart of Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera , a film that feels less like a traditional narrative and more like a half-remembered dream unearthed from the Italian soil. La Chimera
: This recent scholarly paper (March 2026) provides a deep dive into the film’s "necro-eco-mythical" themes, examining how the movie handles the literal and spiritual layers of Italian history. 🌿 Without giving away the ending: the film
: The title refers to a chimera —an unattainable wish or illusion. For Arthur, this is his desperate longing to reunite with his lost love, Beniamina. This is Arthur, the melancholy heart of Alice
The title itself— La Chimera —carries a dual meaning that perfectly encapsulates the film's spirit. In Italian, it refers to a "hope without foundation," a dream that can never be realized. For the tombaroli (grave robbers) Arthur leads, the chimera is the easy wealth hidden in Etruscan tombs. For Arthur, it is something far more elusive: the face of his lost love, Beniamina. A Tale of Two Worlds