Viva Italia!
La Chimera opened at Cinemapolis last weekend and I am very certain you should go see it. Alice Rohrwacher’s film that stole the hearts of many a Cannes festival goer has stolen mine as well in this dreamy film that seems as though it walked right out of a bygone era of Italian filmmaking.
I had seen a trailer for La Chimera, but didn’t really know anything more about it than it being a darling at Cannes. The trailer seemed like it might be a mystery, and maybe had to do with the occult. And Graverobbing! All of this is true, and then some. Arthur (Josh O’Connor) has a gift for finding hidden tombs filled with “grave goods” which he and his friends plunder and sell to an unknown third party hidden in a veteranarian’s office. This is a tiny slice of the plot and all you really need to know. Watching this film unfold is a delectable treat of humor, mystery, adventure, and even a little romance. All set against the backdrop of Italian countryside- and Etruscan tombs!
Did I mention Isabella Rossellini is in this? GO BUY A TICKET ALREADY!
One last bit about La Chimera- After we saw it at Cinemapolis, Dr. C and I chatted up some staff about it, like we do, and Dr. C declared it might just be her favorite film of the year. It is definitely going to be amongst my favorites but since it was technically released in 2023, I likely won’t count it in my end of year best of list. Or I might. BECAUSE IT IS FANTASTIC!
By this time last year, I had watched 43 films. I have only seen 29 so far in 2024. And there are two weeks so far this year where I didn’t even watch one movie. Who even am I?
Spending too much time reading I guess. Speaking of books (for a hot second) I have been reigniting my love for graphic novels. At the moment I am reading Danger and Other Known Risks by Ryan North and Erica Henderson and gosh is it fun! I have Dracula, Motherf**ker by Alex de Campi and Illustrated by Erica Henderson waiting in the wings. Plus a whole slew of stuff that might just be waiting for me when I get back to work this week.
Let me steer us back to movie talk. I am a fan of cryptids, but didn’t know much about the Loveland Frogman other than it is a Frog…man? So I watched the found footage film Frogman the other day and, I know found footage as a subgenre isn’t everyone’s favorite but I love it. And I especially love it when you stick through a film that seems so mundane but the payoff is there. Well, Frogman isn’t that movie, but I am not sad I watched it. At about 85 minutes, this still felt a little long. The basic premise- a guy caught footage of the frogman totally by chance in 1999 when he was 10 and now, 25 years later he wants to prove it was not a hoax. Ok guy, great. So he convinces a camera man friend and the woman he has been pining for (who is leaving for L.A.) to come along with the promise of paying them if they’ll just help him catch footage to prove the Frogman is real!
The time they spend leading up to finding (or not finding) the Frogman is pretty tedious. The friendships are stretched to the limits based on the obsession with FINDING THE TRUTH. There is maybe a cult. There is maybe not a Frogman. But then, here comes the payoff and then… wait, it keeps going? and going. If they had ended the film about 10 minutes sooner it would have worked better for me.