When Italy’s most famous and seductive leading man hooked up with one of France’s most elegant and versatile young stars in the early 1970s, it felt like an arthouse cinema match made in heaven. Alas, the relationship between and would be a short-lived one, lasting for roughly four years and resulting in four rather mediocre movies. (The last one was a forgotten Western spoof by Italian director Marco Ferreri entitled ) The two screen legends also had a baby daughter, Chiara, who grew up to become a talented and coveted actress herself.
She played her first big role in André Téchiné’s at the age of 21 and went on to work with a handful of respected international auteurs, including Raúl Ruiz, Arnaud Desplechin, Manoel de Oliveira, Claire Denis and especially Christophe Honoré, who has made her something of a muse. Teaming up for their fourth collaboration in over a decade, the director and actress now give us the very meta, very inside-baseball film comedy, , in which Chiara literally transforms into her famous late father — donning his looks from Fellini’s and , speaking fluent Italian, hanging out with her mom, Catherine, and trying to find out something about herself, or her dad, or the power that movies hold over us. Whether or not you, the viewer, will find any of that interesting or amusing probably depends on your knowledge of European film history and/or your tolerance for French actors playing themselves on screen.
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