There has been a lot of hype around La Chimera, which can be a recipe for disappointment. It is a strange, indulgent film, with the central motif being that the protagonist, Arthur, played with a glorious annoyance by Josh O’Connor, is seeking a thread that will reconnect him with his lost lover, even though she is dead. That motif sometimes seemed to stand for the film itself, as it seeks to find a path through the maze of its multiple tones and references. At once winsome, comic and faux-thriller. A film that interrogates our relationship with the past, whilst never wanting to take that interrogation too seriously: more Fellini than Antonioni. Fellini feels like a touchstone for a film with an offbeat humour and a wealth of extravagant but essentially loveable characters. The director’s sister has a cameo role as Spartaco, a dealer in stolen antiquities, and the film isn’t afraid to venture towards the far-fetched, as Arthur’s motley band storms her ship. Yet, somehow or other, all this hangs together. Arthur’s irascible journey as the unexplained gringo with his merry band of brothers becomes a sentimental journey of the Sterne-ian kind, one where emotion and ridicule go hand in hand to create a strange alchemy, aligned with ley lines and divination and the cruel workings of fate.
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