Note: I saw “La Chimera” at Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema, a wonderful festival with annual stellar lineups. If you live around the area then it’s well worth going.
It doesn’t feel like it, but there are some truly wonderful films playing in theaters right now, and I’m not even including the obvious one, Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two.”
I’ll name you two that are absolute must-sees: Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses,” Felipe Galvez Haberle’s “The Settlers” — both premiered at Cannes last year and are worth your time and investment.
A third one is being released on March 29th. Alice Rohrwacher’s “La Chimera,” which also premiered at Cannes, makes good on the Italian filmmaker’s 2018 gem “Happy as Lazzaro.” The film, set in ‘80s Tuscany, tackles thieves of ancient grave goods and archaeological wonders. They’re led by Arthur (Josh O’Connor), a man gifted with the power to know where ancient Etruscan antiquities are buried. They then sell them to a shady dealer called Spartaco.
Again, Rohrwacher’s trademark magical-realism has us interpreting episodic events as they unfold. The less you know about the plot, the better. It’s the kind of film that keeps shapeshifting as it goes along. Much like she did in “Happy as Lazzaro,” she takes her time establishing the story and characters, but stick with it, the experience is damn-near transfixing.
A big fan of Rohrwacher’s “La Chimera” is Greta Gerwig. She’s gushing about it. Here’s what she had to say about the film while being honored at an event:
The filmmaker that I’m in love with right now is an Italian filmmaker — Alice Rohrwacher. She’s made wonderful movies and she’s just great. And her movies are great. It made me so happy when I saw her film [“La Chimera”]. I think it’s coming out next year, but it was at Cannes. It made me euphorically happy. It was a movie that could have only been made by her. I go to the movies all the time and I hope the thing I see is like “Oh, that’s it!"
Neon is distributing “La Chimera” which is set to hit theaters on March 29, 2024.
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.