He’s currently setting the box office alight in Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, now British star Josh O’Connor collaborates with another Italian filmmaker in this surreal drama La chimera. Directed by Alice Rohrwacher (2018’s Happy As Lazzaro), he plays Arthur, a gloomy English archaeologist who lives in a peculiar shack build on the wall of an Italian town in the 80s. There, he helps locals rob tombs for valuables, and pines for his lost love.
Rohrwacher’s work is truly in a space all of its own. Nothing in the way of exposition is offered,
instead inviting you to listen in on conversations, piecing together what the characters are talking
about. It’s as much about spending time with the various oddballs on screen as it is working out
where they are going.
There are various distractions, as the story wanders around like the men in the village, picking and putting down narrative treasures as their interest dictates. For some that will be utterly impenetrable, but there’s no one way to tell a good story, and those who stick with the digressions will be rewarded.
O’Connor couldn’t be further away from the awkward portrayal of Prince Charles in The Crown. Brooding and dismissive, his Italian co-stars seem to orbit around his insular nature, as if he himself is some lost artefact. There’s a marvellous supporting turn by Isabella Rossellini, playing the mother of his lost love, cloistered in a crumbling villa surrounded by concerned relatives and put-upon helpers. Carol Duarte shines as Italia, a music student who tries to find a way to Arthur’s heart, despite he very best attempts to keep those doors closed.
La chimera is best enjoyed if you go in knowing that nothing will make sense, until the story comes together is a magical way that is satisfying despite some unanswered questions.