La Chimera

There are many types of people on earth. You have the ones who have shrines created for them at death, and people who bow at their feet, showering them with gifts to bring to the grave, almost like a god. You have those who live comfortably, but who take to the grave personal belongings that may not be worth much but held meaning in a bygone life. Naturally, you have the lowlifes, the convicts, the pickpockets, the tombaroli, who are not necessarily the scum of the earth the way many people see them, but commit crime out of necessity. La Chimera paints an intimate, dreamlike picture of this preordained social hierarchy, of capitalism, and how that works to extirpate the beautiful things that lie just beneath the soil. Arthur, blessed with a divine power to seek out the dead, leads a group of grave-robbers in digging up graves and taking whatever they can sell. Surrealist and Fellini-esque, the morbidity of this movie's premise serves primarily as a symbolic bridge between life and death, challenging divinity with circumstance. As the tombaroli become increasingly lucky in their finds, they are met with the "anxiety of profit that only adds to the strain". One of the most prominent scenes in the movie takes place after they seemingly strike gold, digging up a shrine that houses a beautiful marble statue of a goddess posed with her lion. Out of nowhere Arthur senses a deep connection with this statue. Does it resemble his past lover, or something beyond? This melancholy romance is cut short by a loud, echoing sound of breaking marble, wherein the rest of the grave-robbers cut its head off in an attempt to remove the statue from its original standing. Its meant to startle you, a goddess' head lopped off in one fell swoop. However macabre, there seems to be no questioning the morality of these acts. “What’s the point of judging them?” the troubadour narrates. “The tombaroli are just a drop in the ocean.” We are introduced then to another group, posing as policemen to chase them away and profit off of this priceless find, leaving the tombaroli with only the head. At the auction of this statue, prompting the ultimate stand-off between the tombaroli and the greedy auctioneers, they are seen discussing, yelling, and barking at one another, until it becomes animalistic. Arthur, holding the head of the statue, watching divinity turn into dimes, eventually throws it into the ocean. In the final arc of the film, Arthur leaves his old friends and is exploited by a group of construction workers for his "ability". As he trudges around an empty plot of land, searching for treasure that they will inevitably sell, they find a tunnel. Arthur is pressured to enter first, and almost instantaneously the dirt collapses behind him. Following a piece of red string, he climbs out and into a scene he has imagined (and has been slowly piecing together) the entire film, reuniting with his lover. We are to assume this scene shows his death and yet, it is the most alive he has ever felt. The overarching iconography of Etruscan art and archeology prevails as a representation of how capitalism erodes beauty, and, correspondingly, how the destruction of such a form of greed gives life to beauty. The main quote from the film is reiterated several times (“You are not made for human eyes"), reflecting the state we live in. The Romans valued highly beautiful and aesthetic things, but all that the Etruscans left behind were fated to be unseen by future generations and practically invisible. Similarly, Rohrwacher, in the span of this film, gives little for you to romanticise. She turns the camera towards the dirt, the rubble, dirtied clothes, skeletons, and shattered artefacts. But nonetheless we see glimpses of beauty in Arthur's recollection of his past lover, or in how Italia inhabits an abandoned train station and turns it into a sanctuary, not to make money but purely to grant it life. Italia is an example of a character that belongs to the lower-class, but protects the sacredness and beauty of these graves. So we present ourselves with several questions: thrusted deep into a time of greed, desire, and profit, how long will it be until we dig up beauty intended to be preserved and taint it indefinitely for posterity? How will we ever learn to appreciate beautiful objects if our society, in the purest forms of human nature, condemns them to be attached to every meaning but? Unfortunately, there is no foreseeable answer. After all, beauty was never made for human eyes. (summary: i guess the movie was okay also i understood 5% of the film without subtitles these duolingo lessons are really working for me)