containing drawings, moss, and a poem from the director to connect with the film's themes of death and the unseen. 2. The Novel: La Chimera by Sebastiano Vassalli (1990)
Rohrwacher directs with a distinct, idiosyncratic style, shooting on 16mm film to give the imagery a grainy, textured quality that feels like a memory unearthed. The film’s visual language is playful and surreal; the aspect ratio shifts, frames are rewound for emphasis, and characters occasionally break the fourth wall. Yet, this whimsy never overshadows the emotional core of the story. As Arthur and his cohorts plunder the region’s heritage, selling priceless artifacts to a shady fence (played by Isabella Rossellini), the film asks profound questions about ownership, preservation, and the value we assign to history.
It is a film about the weight of history—not just the history in textbooks, but the history in the soil, in our bones, and in our hearts. Alice Rohrwacher has crafted a eulogy for the living and a love letter to the dead. It asks us to consider our own Chimeras: What impossible thing are we searching for? And what happens if we actually find it?
