The former 'Crown' actor officially starts his leading-man phase with this moody, magical-realist story of a tomb raider chasing a lost love.
that if you were to stroll around Riparbella, a small Italian village in the rural part of Tuscany, you would come across a number of tombs. Some were hidden, some were open, and many of these underground burial sites were more than 2000 years old, filled with ancient artifacts. For centuries, they were left undisturbed, as a sign of respect for the dead.
About that guide: He’s Arthur , a British archeological scholar who’s just finished a prison sentence thanks to his off-hour activities. To call himwould be a kindness — he’s got a hair-trigger temper, and you’d think from the state of his dingy white suit that he himself had just awaken from a long winter’s dirt nap. Arriving back in Riparbella, he’s none too happy to see his former partners in crime.
Rohrwacher has said that much of this loose, often funny and indelibly tragic story comes from her own memories of seeing similar holes in the ground while growing up near Tuscany, and the way she seems to be ransacking her own scrapbooks to conjure up ’80s Italy would be impressive enough on its own. Ditto the way her playfulness doesn’t dilute the anger that simmer right beneath the surface of this pointed look at social inequity.
And even while the director is displaying her knack for cine-magic tricks and formalist gestures, she’s also well aware that she blessed with someone at the center of this carousel who needs no illusionist’s help. Whether you first clocked Josh O’Connor in a small part onyou probably thought: Oh, this gent is destined for bigger spotlights. Here, he’s offering a link to the past that’s different from what Rohrwacher is chasing: the New Hollywood ’70s.
There’s no point in trying to describe what Rohrwacher is leading up to exactly, given what a mood piece this film is. But you may have already begun to suspect thatis also, among the many other genres it’s pillaging, a ghost story. Not in the gothic, I-see-dead-people way necessarily, but in the manner of how those no longer shuffling on this mortal coil continue to communicate with those left behind.
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