Flora, who cannot see, represents another kind of blindness—willful or otherwise. She sits in her garden, attended by a choir of elderly women, waiting for a daughter who will never return. Arthur is drawn to Flora because she is the only one who shares his delusion. She, too, listens for Beniamina’s footsteps. She, too, refuses to let go.
La Chimera is also a sharp critique of cultural colonialism. Rohrwacher presents the tombaroli not as simple thieves, but as counter-Revolutionaries in a class war. They are poor, landless laborers stealing from the rich Etruscan ancestors and selling to wealthy foreign collectors who display the artifacts in sterile, soulless museums. La Chimera
This physicality extends to the performances. Josh O’Connor shuffles through the film wearing a rumpled white linen suit and a permanent slouch. He is a man pulled down by gravity, a living corpse. In contrast, the women of the film—particularly Italy (Carol Duarte), a music teacher with a powerful voice, and Flora (Isabella Rossellini), Beniamina’s aristocratic mother—are grounded and solid. They represent the future and the acceptance of loss. Flora, who cannot see, represents another kind of
One of the most striking features of La Chimera is its visual texture. Shot by cinematographer Hélène Louvart on 35mm film and 16mm, the picture shifts between two distinct ratios. The "real" world—the fields, the train station, the market—is shot in a boxy, Academy ratio (1.33:1), evoking a cramped, post-war neorealist feel. She, too, listens for Beniamina’s footsteps
It is often studied alongside the works of D’Annunzio, though Campana’s style is uniquely visceral and fragmentary. 4. Cultural Symbolism: The Chimera of Arezzo