The true natures of love, commitment, and reality are called into question in this offbeat drama. One night in bed, Tomas, a magician, begins telling a story to his wife Desirè about Emma and Sal, a married couple whose love life has gone stale. In order to fire up their relationship, Emma and Sal begin playing an increasingly elaborate series of role-playing games, in which they assume different personas -- Sal saves Emma as she is tied to railroad tracks, or Emma must seduce another man to pull her husband out of debt. But the question soon arises -- are Emma and Sal real? And who really holds the power in their lives? Chimera also features Franco Nero as one of the participants in Emma and Sal's sexual fantasies.
Direction
Corsicato's playful, theatrical framing keeps you perpetually off-balance.
Acting
Iaia Forte shape-shifts through personas with hypnotic precision.
Writing
Script delights in pulling rugs out from under every assumption.
Director
Pappi Corsicato
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Part of a wave of early-2000s Italian cinema exploring theatricality in everyday life, alongside Ozpetek and Sorrentino's early work.
Corsicato originally developed this as a stage play, which explains the claustrophobic single-location intimacy and the 'actor playing actor playing character' nesting.
IT
