IT’S A CLASSIC cop-out twist ending: it was all just a dream. What about a film that begins with one? A girl in an embroidered dress sliding off her shoulders, red thread unraveling at her bare feet. A happy day, but her brows are sad, upturned. The sun sparks between the shadows of tall grasses and wisps of hair, symptomatic of a luscious Super 16.
La chimera, Alice Rohrwacher’s latest feature, is preoccupied with beautiful things we can no longer see.
Blink. The film stock changes (though it’s still a gorgeous 35 mm). On a train, the conductor takes tickets, our dreamer forced to open his eyes. He shares a car with three young women, none of them Beniamina, the strawberry blonde from his video-diary vision. Lost or dead, she’s definitely gone.
