Alice Rohrwacher’s winsome fable needs the viewer to go along for the ride.

Shabby Arthur (Josh O’Connor) is an Englishman in Tuscany. His life is peripatetic and a bit of a mess. He has a special gift for finding buried antiquities, something that gives him the thrill of the chase as well as gaol time. Reunited with his madcap band of grave robbers, he is pulled between one more job and his grief at a lost love, Beniamina (Yile Yara Vianello).

There are lots of parts to the story and the mood and genre keep shifting. There’s the comedic social drama of Beniamina’s mother Flora’s house – a jewel-like performance by Isabella Rossellini – with her many daughters like a Greek chorus. There is a budding romance with Italia (Carol Duarte), who seems to defy the conservative patriarchy and capitalism of the nation. And there’s the enigmatic mystery and drama of the uncovering of the tombs, overlaid with Arthur’s grief for Beniamina

The metaphors are both obvious and obscure. Letting go of the past, plundering the past, inability to move on, the destruction of a way of life, patriarchy destroying Italy. Like with Corsage (2022), chronology is deliberately fluid and we could be in Tuscany pretty much any time in the last half century. It kind of works, although I found myself emotionally unengaged with Arthur’s plight. I’ve discovered that if you are a fan of Rohrwacher’s work, you’ll probably love it.

Director: Alice Rohrwacher
Origin: France, Italy, Switzerland (2023)
Language: English, Italian with English subtitles
Genre: Drama

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