Light Currents: La Chimera

Let’s talk about the visuals in "La Chimera" because you can practically feel the entire film with your hands. There's something about how cinematographer Hélène Louvart shot this film that makes it feel like you're simultaneously watching something ancient and something happening right now.

You know that feeling when you're half-awake and everything feels slightly unreal? That's how Louvart shoots Arthur's whole journey. The way light filters through dusty windows or dapples through tree leaves creates this dreamy, almost hallucinatory vibe that perfectly matches his grief-stricken headspace. When he has those visions of his missing girlfriend Beniamina, I swear I could feel the line between memory and reality dissolving right in front of me.

What really got me was how tactile everything looks. You can practically feel the cool darkness of those ancient tombs, the rough stone of the village buildings, and that sun-baked Italian earth. Louvart uses different film stocks (35mm, 16mm, Super 16mm) that make everything so physical.

Notice how the film keeps switching up its style? Some of those tomb-robbing scenes play out like old silent films with that sped-up motion, while others look like they could be Renaissance paintings come to life. It's playful in a way that perfectly captures Arthur's weird relationship with history – he worships these treasures while simultaneously looting them.

The graininess throughout the whole film is so perfect too. It makes "La Chimera" itself feel like a piece of 1970s cinema rather than something made in 2023. There's this transcendent sequence where we see an ancient shrine before the tomb raiders break in, a chance for the audience to feel what is before it becomes what was – that grainy footage creates this weird connection between us viewing the film now and that distant past being disturbed.

Despite all these artistic choices, the film never loses its grounding in reality. The Umbrian and Tuscan landscapes looks so authentic – weeds pushing through cracked pavements, abandoned railway stations being reclaimed by nature, crumbling old houses. This balance makes a world where you totally buy that a guy could have supernatural tomb-finding abilities.

The way Louvart handles light throughout is practically sculptural. Whether it's candles flickering in burial chambers, dawn breaking over the countryside, or that almost supernatural glow of Beniamina's red dress in Arthur's visions – there's this ethereal quality that makes everything feel suspended between worlds.

In my own films, I'm constantly chasing this exact balance – the curse of a multicultural and transient childhood is my creative source I guess. Rohrwacher and Louvart absolutely nailed that feeling of neither here nor there and, if I may add, of what will never be again. They've created a visual language that speaks to how we physically connect with the past and how history haunts us in ways we can and can't see.

Anyone else notice this stuff when watching, or was I just in a particularly receptive mood?