Modern Classic: I Am Love (2009)
I Am Love (2009) is one of Luca Guadagnino’s finest films. It boasts an unforgettable starring role by Tilda Swinton as Russian born Emma, who begins to find life within a wealthy Italian family increasingly oppressive.
I had seen Io Sono L’Amore, as it is called in Italian, once before in the cinema, and then on TV a few times. However, I couldn't pass up the chance to see the film again in a theater late last year, as part of a special program at my local cinema.
In comparison: I've only once seen Call Me By Your Name, my other Guadagnino favorite. That movie has lived on in my head as being close to perfect and I’m afraid it will never live up to my expectations if I see it again.
However, I Am Love is one of those films where you keep discovering new things. Almost every scene feels special. There is some functional stuff in there, but most of the shots are like works of art to me.
It's the work of a director who, for the first time in his career, has enough budget to go all out and who does so with full conviction. The film is, according to some, excessive, but it is a sensory overload that you can return to again and again. And that's what matters to me.
I Am Love is also a very sensual film, just like In The Mood For Love (2000) by Wong Kar-wai was. Guadagnino’s film is of course about love, but also about food, which is lovingly portrayed. In a sense it is also a movie about nature and architecture, because the places where the characters are at any given time also play an essential role in the story.
Tilda Swinton had already starred in Guadagnino’s feature film debut The Protagonists. For their next collaboration they wanted to make a melodrama in the style of Douglas Sirk, such as All That Heaven Allows (1955). Another inspiration would probably have been Visconti's The Leopard (1963), another film portraying an Italian family of wealthy industrialists.
Swinton speaks Italian with a Russian accent in the film, an indication that despite everything she has done for the family she has remained an outsider.
Emma has given her husband Tancredi Recchi two sons and a daughter, she throws parties that she doesn't like much herself and tries to be a good housewife all around. But something feels off.
When she meets the handsome cook Antonio through her eldest son Edoardo, she is irresistibly attracted to him. This leads to a beautiful, wordless sequence in San Remo, where Emma tries to follow Antonio down the street without being spotted by him.
It's the mix of beautiful images, clever editing, stimulating music and Swinton's expressive facial expressions that make for an unforgettable scene. The movie is full of moments like that.
Perhaps it is going a bit too far to say that the Recchi family is completely gutted by the filmmaker, but the image of the men in the family gradually becomes less positive.
I think it is obvious that Luca Guadagnino’s sympathy really lies more with the women: with Emma's lesbian daughter Elisabetta, with Eduardo's seemingly insignificant fiancée Eva and also with loyal housekeeper Ida.
In the home stretch the film is thrown a little bit off balance by an overly dramatic scene, which I cannot talk about without spoiling the movie. However, the last couple of scenes are very strong again and when Emma finally does what she should have done a long time ago, it is clear that Guadagnino, Swinton and Co have created a masterful film.