The tombaroli are a curious lot. There is something of the profane about them: ne’er-do-wells who loot historical zones for profit, uncaring of their (often damaging) passage into cemeteries and sacred sites. What of it, if the grave they rob is of a long-dead child, or if the altar they shatter was devoted to a once-revered goddess? There is money to be made, wealthy collectors to bargain with and satisfy, etc. And so the dead, and their divines, are desecrated.

But there is money to be made, and certain other needs—beyond the preferences of the social elite—are satisfied. Who are we to judge if, in the end, it is work that lifts a particular class of workers out of destitution? What do the dead care of the activities of the living? They, along with any gods, are gone.

This is, at least, the dichotomy set up by Alice Rohrwacher in her 2023 Italian-language film La Chimera. It is also a film about Beauty, its imprint across fading facades and physical lineages; about history, as well, which is both material and immaterial, although its invisible pressures clearly burden some more than others. It is a film set in the 20th century, with 20th century backdrops and sounds and issues; but Josh O’Connor’s Arthur (Artur, as his tomb-raiding compatriots call him) is every bit the Orpheus, death-haunted and in search of a love he cannot retrieve. […]