I Am Love (2010)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Fantastic!

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

I am not a fan of deer in the headlights style acting and Tilda Swinton gives up a great deal of it in this movie. Look at me as I stare blank faced and wide eyed as things, life things are happening around me. If anything redeems this movie somewhat, it's the splendid locations; the gorgeous mansion, the city, etc. The story fails because it does not give us anything to strive for or push against except the malaise, boredom and passivity of the main character who is not very sympathetic. It is hard to root for her, in fact you kind of hope she absentmindedly walks into a door at some point, or miscalculates and shoves an olive up her nose instead of her mouth in the repeated fork journey from plate to face.

Oh, the beautiousness of True Love! You're a middle aged woman who lives a boring life, with a stoic husband and tedious friends. You're quite well off, but you're not happy. Everyday is an endless procession of parties and dull, dull conversations. I would have sympathy for you, but we, the viewers, have to experience it too. What better way to improve your mood about your shallow existence, than to make sure your misery is shared.Then you meet... HIM. He's a chef. Much younger than you. And a DREAMBOAT. And like most nice guys in the movies, completely devoid of any interesting character quirks at all. Still, having your best years behind you, you fall for him. THE SEX IS GREAT!! You do it inside. You do it outside. Look, the camera is lingering on the close-up of a cricket! A wardrobe! A cloudless sky! It's all so arty! I can just picture the cinematographer and director doing a high-five, while I count the patches of damp on my ceiling.Rarely how I seen such a long film, and not be able to recall almost anything about it after it was over. It was like eavesdropping on the most pretentious bunch of snobs this side of Chelsea, who have Shirley Valentine as their matriarch. Apparently, Tilda Swinton learned Russian and Italian, just for this one role. That's like learning how to disassemble and reassemble a car... so you can clean them for a living. It's just not worth it.The synopsis may refer to it as a 'tragic love story', but I would snip the last two words off there. GREAT DVD front cover, though. That's what made me want to see it in the first place. Boy, do I regret that decision now..... 3/10

Io sono l'amore starts with an impressionist-like picture of a city in winter, reminding a painting by Renoir. Yet, we'll soon realize that we are not at the end of the 19th century but rather 100 years later. The next scene is a party in a very rich people mansion. A family gathers, three generations get together for the birthday of the founding father of the family. He has a big announcement to make about the family heritage, an announcement everybody waits for many years. The relations between the members of the family start to build up under our eyes during the dinner, the old man is obviously in control. Does this remind Coppola's The Godfather? What follows is however a film about the slow decay of the ruling class, a decay that starts from the degradation of the family fabric which does not allow any longer cohesion in face of the forces of economics and history. We are reminded the universe of another great movie – Visconti's Il gattopardo.All these comparisons may seem extremely ambitious for the work of a director, Luca Guadagnino, who is practically at his second feature film only (and the first one seems to have been an erotic teenage drama). Amazing as it may seem, Io sono l'amore is a very complex and daring enterprise that succeeds to compare honorably with the illustrious antecedents it is inspired from and also has a lot to say on its own. The Recchi family in the center of the story is led by strong men who built a textile empire (with dubious origins in the second world war industry, so the Godfather quote is not completely unjustified) and married beautiful women, not always in their own class of super-riches. One of them is Emma (Tilda Swinton), Russian at origin, married to the heir of the empire, leading the house, coordinating the social ceremonies, managing the house economy, raising the children and dealing with their growth and emotional problems. Is she happy? Can she keep together a family that lives in a different age than the one of the ossified bourgeois clans, with some of the younger people trying to break the walls of the conveniences in order to find their vocation or their ways of loving? When the occasion shows up it will be Emma herself who will let her true feelings overcome the conventions, but the way to personal truth may be paved with tragedy. The story of the family relations is carefully constructed and impeccably acted, but there is one moment when the story risks to fall into soap drama. This moment is overcome by the superb acting of Tilda Swinton. I realize now that I missed somehow how huge an actress she is. In one film she succeeds to be at turns high-class cool and passionate, attractive and ugly, young enough to love and fast-aging, in control and completely broken, and all these in one character around whom the whole movie is spinning. At the end, when tragedy had struck, and she has the courage to speak the truth and break the social conventions, she is told by the husband who was a minute ago swearing love and offering protection 'you are nothing'. It is actually the Recchi's who get nothing but emptiness in their lives, and this is the moment when Emma gains back her life and the chance to start again.There are so many beautiful moments of cinema in this film which make it stand on its own and worth remembering even beyond the story itself. There are some amazing moments of camera work, and some haunting fragments of musical score. There is a lot of good acting, and care to the social and relationship details, every corner of the screen is full with characters who live true lives in a realistic and exact composition. There is beautifully filmed nature and there is a lot of interesting food, actually food plays at some moment an important role in the action of the film, as the mean of communication between the characters (one of them is a very talented chef). Guadagnino's movie continues a tradition in the Italian cinema of using family stories to deal with social and political issues and tells again a story which will be worth telling as long as class differences exist and are challenged by history and by emotions.

Magnificent is the word that comes to my mind on seeing 'I am Love'. It is vividly made, on detailed, glossy sets and the actors are draped in costumes smooth as silk. 'I am Love' is beautiful to watch but shallow and very plain within.The story is of a Russian woman who becomes Italian once she arrives married in Milan to an extent that she 'forgets' her original name and adopts the Italian name Emma Recchi. Unhappy and utterly restrained and subdued to her household duties as the wife of an aristocratic businessman , she one day finds herself drawn towards the newly discovered erotic love with a lower class man.Although the first half is smooth and interesting, I find some scenes to be terribly overdone. The pretentious grandfather announcing his heir is one such scene that can be singled out. On the plus side, the sub- plot involving Emma's lesbian daughter fascinates. It is very well handled, with the right amount of subtlety. The scene at the train station when the daughter ditches her boyfriend carries a strange awkwardness as the family doesn't know how to react to the scene. Swinton here, as Emma, emotes helplessness very well. The following scene deserves even higher points for Swinton's masterful acting when her daughter comes out. It is here that she experiences a jolt of hidden, unfulfilled desire popping out.That is it and from here, the film falls flat. It is left very vague why she goes after the chef. Agreed he makes some delicious Russian food (which Swinton tastes in another wonderful scene) but is that all? After that, before we actually digest their attraction, a very tastefully and aesthetically pictured love-scene is splattered on the screen. The imagery of the insects sprinkled in between is superb! That scene is one of my all time favorite love-scenes. The Sun, skin, grass, body, sweat has never looked so inviting.The second hour drags with little story development and the ending is rushed. 'I am Love' develops as a poem on the unsung beauty of enigmatic love, eroticism and subdued desires but the end spoils it. I never understood the hurry in the climax scene. Yet I am Love is a very good film, well made and directed. Certainly Luca Guadagnino can make better films I eagerly look forward to.The cinematography and costume-design are wow! They very successfully bring magnificence. Swinton is exotic, mysterious and beautiful. These are perfectly nuanced by the lush costumes. She was feminised beyond recognition in the initial reels. The camera-work includes some difficult masterful shots. One of those that would linger in my memory forever is the scene where Swinton descends the stairs irresistibly to passionately kiss her lover. The camera follows her descend the stairs hoveringly. It is breathtakingly beautiful. Same to the scene where she climbs atop a monument after discovering some letters from her daughter. The whole film is delight to the eyes.Tilda Swinton herself is magnificent. She speaks very little, but when she does, it is intoxicating. Her monologue half-way through the film in which she talks of coming to Milan, becoming Italian and her intense struggle is exemplary. With the beautiful images of the valley and her terrific voice, the scene is a highlight. But she seemed unfocused in the second half. It was often difficult to understand her, something we did easily in the first half. Maybe, that is the strength of her performance. All in all, the magnificent Swinton's performance drives the film.The music by John Adams supports the film very well. Luca rightly chose the instrumental pieces although I wonder what Adams saw in the film that compelled him to allow the makers to use his score. The film is a mixed bag. It leaves one unimpressed overall.