An Italian priest's time machine takes Venice by eerie surprise

The Venice Film Festival's late-night slate has produced an unexpected talking point. 'Chronovisor,' a debut feature reviewed by The New York Times, follows an academic who becomes fixated on an invention attributed to an Italian priest — a device supposedly capable of viewing events from the past. The Times calls it an 'enchanting' mystery that builds to an eerie climax.

The film taps into a genuinely Italian strain of folklore: the Chronovisor, a purported time-viewing machine allegedly constructed by a Benedictine monk in the 1960s and long dismissed by the Vatican as a hoax. The premise has circulated for decades in esoteric circles, and its cinematic treatment arrives at a festival already steeped in stories about power, perception and the machinery of belief.

For a festival that opened with Danny Boyle's rollicking tabloid saga 'Ink' and has hosted jury-chair Maggie Gyllenhaal's pointed remarks on the industry's 'systemic problem' with sexism, 'Chronovisor' offers a different register — a slow-burn, atmospheric mystery rather than a statement picture.

The New York Times review, published Thursday, describes the film as an occult mystery that derives its power from restraint. The reviewer notes the story's academic protagonist becomes consumed by the priest's invention, a narrative hook that allows the director to explore questions of faith, technology and the desire to witness what is hidden. The Times' praise for the film's 'enchanting' quality and 'eerie climax' positions it as a discovery title among the festival's higher-profile premieres.

The Chronovisor legend itself has deep roots in Italian Catholic culture. The device was reportedly the brainchild of Father Pellegrino Ernetti, a Benedictine monk who claimed to have built a machine capable of seeing and hearing the past, including events from the life of Christ. The Vatican never confirmed the device's existence, and Ernetti later disavowed it, but the story has persisted in Italian esoteric tradition and now finds a new international audience through the film.

The festival context matters. Venice has increasingly positioned itself as a launchpad for genre-minded debuts that blend art-house sensibility with crowd-pleasing hooks. 'Chronovisor' fits that mold, and its subject matter — a priest, a machine, a mystery — gives international critics a distinctly Italian story to champion amid the festival's usual parade of auteur-driven dramas.

Reviews from Venice often set the tone for a film's international release, and the Times' endorsement could give 'Chronovisor' a distribution tailwind. The film's emergence also speaks to a broader trend at this year's festival: a fascination with the machinery of perception, from Boyle's tabloid exposé to the immersive virtual worlds of the Venice Immersive showcase, now in its tenth anniversary edition.