La Chimera (2023)

The critic calls it an eccentric and beguiling drama. They single out O’Connor’s sensational performance as the sad-eyed Brit and the deft balance of comedy and melancholy.

The critic calls it a joyous, masterful work of folk magic. They single out the transcendent sequence revealing an ancient shrine buried incongruously near a power plant.

Rohrwacher’s moody and marvellous fourth feature explores a tomb raider’s grief and the moral costs of disturbing the dead through mythic resonance and time-blending storytelling. The critic singles out the sublime ending and the film’s hopeful message about bridging past and present for particular praise.

Rohrwacher’s wistful parable examines ghosts, time and the ownership of the past through a surly British archaeologist turned tomb-raider. The rueful, melancholic film channels neorealist and Straub-Huillet echoes while balancing satire with a profound sense of historical transience.

The review describes the film as an exquisitely crafted, playful and bewitching contemporary folk tale that melds mischief, myth and melancholy with tactile, wonder-infused imagery. It singles out the director’s distinctive magic and the lead performance for making the story feel alive and emotionally resonant.

Rohrwacher crafts a sun-dappled Italian fable of incandescent beauty about loss, time, and the significance of ancient relics beyond their market value. The critic highlights the film’s exquisite blurring of the tangible and ethereal, along with its playful yet soulful perspective on mortality and legacy.

Rohrwacher delivers a dreamy, magical-realist take on a heist story about tomb raiders in 1980s Italy, with Josh O’Connor’s haunted performance anchoring the film’s blend of whimsy and melancholy. The critic singles out the director’s spellbinding use of light, overlapping dialogue, and shifting aspect ratios for praise while noting some quirky elements feel out of place.

Rohrwacher’s third film in her informal trilogy is the most romantic, following a grieving English tomb-raider whose supernatural gift leads him through Italy’s past and present. It is playful, textured and the best Indiana Jones movie of the year.

Rohrwacher’s magical-realist treasure hunt is a funny, deeply satisfying meditation on loss and hope set among Italy’s ruins. O’Connor’s still, silent performance anchors the film’s enchanting, surprising formal delights and exploration of the past belonging to everyone and no one.

The film has everything one would want in an Italian picture, blending visual beauty, comedy and a darker melancholy plot about grave-robbers seeking Etruscan treasure.

The critic finds it expansive and shows new ways a movie can be. They single out the destabilising, intuitive style with visual ideas seldom repeated.

The critic finds the film a surreal yet accessible blend of magical realism and neo-realism that showcases Josh O’Connor as a leading man with crafty, mesmeric energy in the role of a melancholy grave-robbing archaeologist. Rohrwacher is praised for her genre-shifting style and the film’s intriguingly open-ended exploration of history, grief and identity.

The lovely, mysterious film follows a sad-eyed Josh O’Connor as a reluctant grave-robber seeking a passage to the afterlife amid a merry band of tombaroli. Rohrwacher mixes earthy naturalism with playful, ramshackle fantasy in a rich, allusive work rich with Italian cinematic echoes.

The critic describes it as a strange, messy, resonant film that is part dreamscape, part modern folk tale. They single out its ode to the fragility of beautiful things and cautionary tale about how easily they can be lost.

The critic praises Rohrwacher's fable-like exploration of tomb-robbers in 1980s Italy as a meditation on capitalism's profaning of the sacred and exploitation of the poor. She highlights the film's fluid sense of time and the contrast between the grave-robbers' playful defiance and the shadowy world of wealthy collectors.

Rohrwacher’s film is an extraordinary, beguiling tale of a renegade archaeologist leading a band of tomb-raiders in 1980s Tuscany, with Josh O’Connor giving one of his finest performances as a man torn between past and present.

The film is a uniquely magical, lyrically strange blend of folklore, dreams and realism following a band of Etruscan tomb-raiders. Josh O’Connor delivers a superb, haunted performance as the melancholy Englishman searching for a lost love and a portal to the afterlife.

Alice Rohrwacher’s latest is a dreamy, enchanting film following a tomb raider pining for lost love, filled with magic and a bright red thread that beguiles the viewer. The critic praises its approachable yet elliptical style and Rohrwacher’s singular voice among contemporary filmmakers.

Rohrwacher’s ethereally beguiling film follows a grief-stricken Englishman turned grave-robber on a transfixing voyage into the underworld, meditating on honouring the past and the sacred.

Josh O’Connor is compelling as a moody archaeologist sniffing out stolen treasures in a stylish drama set in 1980s Italy.

The critic says Josh O’Connor steals the show in this giddy magical realist carnivalesque. They single out the hybrid beast merging the earthly with the ethereal and O’Connor’s sublime performance.

The critic calls it a spellbinding masterpiece and one of the best films of 2024, praising its Fellini-esque daydream quality blending past and present, living and dead. She singles out the lively portrayal of the grave-robbers and Carol Duarte's Italia as the emotional heart amid themes of grief, survival, and collective reclamation.

The critic praises the film as an enchanting modern myth that uses magical realist touches to comment on greed and history, with a beguiling power that transforms the viewer's perspective. She singles out Rohrwacher's ability to tap into uncorrupted innocence and the spell it casts.

The critic hails the film as one of the best in Cannes competition, a stunning and lyrical pastoral parable that contemplates time, existence and the afterlife through its whimsical folk-tale approach to grave-robbing and history. They single out the tender cinematography and the film’s philosophical depth on the unknowability of time.

The critic calls Alice Rohrwacher’s film her best yet and one of the strongest in competition, praising it as a splendid, mysterious blend of adventure, heist, love story and spiritual journey. They single out Josh O’Connor’s brilliant lead performance (delivered entirely in Italian) and the director’s fresh take on themes of the past.

The critic calls it an absolute treasure of a movie that is quietly spellbinding and one of the most interesting films of the year. They single out its subtly explosive finale that combines flashes of painful past and path forward.

The critic finds it an ethereal meditation on personal histories and collective belonging, commending Josh O'Connor's masterful, heartbreaking performance balancing kindness, curiosity, and volatile grief. She highlights the hazy, sun-drenched cinematography and inventive techniques that fold multiple timelines into one stream.

The critic finds it a sweet but overly fanciful tale of life, love, and death that is beautifully crafted and gorgeous to look at. They single out its playful camerawork but note it lulls the viewer into emotional sedation.

The critic finds the film a hybrid of forms and themes that never quite succeeds or finds a solid identity, describing it as rambling and narratively unsatisfying despite visual strengths and good ideas. She singles out a moving moment of aesthetic awe as insufficient to justify the length.

The critic calls Rohrwacher a master of blending supernatural elements with the mundane and praises the film's magical realism combined with everyday life. She singles out its profound effect on themes of loneliness and love after reflection.