By Elle Oberg, First Year, Film and Television
All art is a trace. It’s one that determines how well we are remembered, but, should all traces be followed? Any means of creative expression is like a map to the mind, imprinting something that once lay internal, outwardly, but when burying treasure, is it to be hidden or be found?
The duality of un-covering art is an interesting one, it’s one that holds an aspect of moral ambiguity. There is the fundamental belief that, inherently, art was made to be seen, that it should be un-burried for the benefit of all of us. And on the other side, people advocate for not only letting the dead rest, but not using their art as a means of profit, for us.
After watching ‘La chimera’, I came to realise the extent to which I felt surrounding this subject. A passionate feeling, one that often comes after witnessing something beautiful, (such as this film.) Through the lens of the main character, as he whispers to the head of an excavated statue : ‘You are not made for human eyes’, I realised that as humans, we overlook inanimacy deeply. Just because an object does not have a soul, it does not mean we cannot respect it as if it did.
After all, as morbid as it sounds, we bury the dead out of respect, and they have the same amount of soul, and the same amount of eyes as a statue does. We would not dig up the dead, so why art?
I think this morbid approach aligns with the film itself very well, the protagonist himself is portrayed as almost ghost-like, as if he is a part of the afterlife whilst on earth. A part of him died when his lover did, and during the pivotal and final moments of the film - where it is alluded that he too dies, joining her, we again, gain this urgent understanding that we are not so unlike art. His final moments take place in a tomb, and yet he is not lost. Instead, he finds his own way back to the woman he loved.
Throughout the entire film, he is stuck in the past, he finally finds closure at the end, leading us to realise how the past is more complicated than we can even begin to understand - if we dig it up, then we are consequently disturbing what is meant to be at rest.
Featured Image: IMDb
Are there any other films where the un-covering of art plays such a valuable role?
