In the heart of the Italian metropolis, in an inconspicuous vacant lot between shopping malls, railway tracks either start or end. They run rusty through highways, blooming parks and neighborhoods covered with dry linen. Sometimes the rails overcome fear and come close to the buzzing factories that flood the whole neighborhood with light at night.
Once they get out of the city, the paths find themselves in a different world — not so modern and close to nature. The hills flow into the plains, decorated here and there with olive groves, and rivers play with the sun's glare against the backdrop of snow-capped mountains. But the idyll ends, and after diving into the thorny thickets near the tilted aqueduct, the road ends.
A small building took refuge away from the forced stop. Its facade has long been dilapidated, its doors have flown off their hinges, and its empty window frames are powerless to watch the wind rolling freely back and forth. Although the worst thing is the rain streams that rush into the gaps in the roof and wash away the elegant drawings from the walls. But even in this monument to bygone times, people are swarming.
It is not known for certain how young Arthur got from dank England to sunny Italy, but the whole village knows where he spent his last days. Right while working, he was captured by the police and put him behind bars. And the only reason for this treacherous kidnapping is the main character's sincere love for Etruscan art, which is absurdly buried in the ground.
But frankly speaking, Arthur's outrage is made up of hypocrisy, as he makes a living by robbing graves. An empty-looking rake, surrounded by ever-noisy friends, wanders around the neighborhood in search of the past — clay figures, expressive statues and gold coins that the predecessors of the ancient Romans gave to their fallen loved ones.
In fact, Arthur is robbing an entire nation, depriving Italians of bits of their history and cultural heritage. Despite the awe he genuinely feels about every discovery, they all go to the black market and then settle in private collections. So that the main character could have one more drink and watch his comrades having fun in a seedy seaside bar.
Despite obvious problems with the law, Arthur and his entourage are really suffering from a different conflict. They are torn between past and present without paying the slightest attention to the future. They are not interested in honest work in a port or factory, which looms like a charming siren on the horizon.
This colorful band is much closer to momentary profit, which will allow you to meet the sunrise not with an empty stomach. But accepting the natural course of time hides not stoicism or the realization of the futility of life, but banal connivance. Underground treasure hunters simply do not want to take responsibility for tomorrow into their own hands.
With a cheerful leech, they dug into someone else's work, as if it were a free gift from the gods that had been waiting for their arrival for thousands of years. Nevertheless, the Englishman stands out from the crowd, and not only with his dusty suit. If the rest are driven solely by idleness and unwillingness to put in extra effort, he, among other things, is held hostage to an unusual gift.
In the picture “La Chimera” Alice Rohrwacher, as if tired of the everyday life of cinema, is once again entering the realm of allegorical. Inexplicably, Arthur feels under which hill the crypts with ancient artifacts are hidden. All you need is to wander around a small branch in your hands. But just like “Happy as Lazzaro”, otherness brings only bitterness to the main character.
It would seem that Arthur got hold of a bottomless vessel full of coins that can be used to pay for all kinds of dreams and whims, both his own and those of others. In fact, he fell into a hole from which he can't get out on his own. As if completely devoid of other talents, he longingly wanders from one grave to another, hoping to find a little happiness in the midst of the pointless fuss that he woke up through the gaps in his pockets.
Arthur used to care little about the dead with their knick-knacks, as he couldn't take his eyes off his soul mate. The world seemed brighter, and the past was only part of life. But the protagonist's love closed his eyelids forever, cutting off the way for him to the future. Now the bygone season hides not only his earnings, but also the only reason to breathe. After all, memories are the main coin that Charon appropriates.
Even when the rickety building finally falls into the remains of the railway tracks, and its bas-reliefs crumble into dust, people will curl around. When they grovel before the past, they will seek not so much profit as their lost happiness. And none of them have the guts to see under the back of tomorrow, where it patiently waits for them.
