David O'ConnellI am Love (Io sono l'amore)
June 18th 2010 06:13
Elegant, refined, and invigorating, I am Love is a feast for the senses, a family saga which utilises breath-taking artistic sensibilities to distract, sometimes not so subtly, from its dramatic shortcomings. It might just as readily be accused of a pretentious accessorizing - a charge mostly stemming from director Luca Guadagnino’s fixation with elaborate serpentine camera movements and gloriously over-the-top use of music by modern classicist John Adams, pillaged from the composer's back-catalogue. The film produces an elusive kind of magic however, leaving behind most indelibly the stain of its sheer audaciousness.
Emma (Tilda Swinton) is the Russian-born wife of Tancredi Recchi (Pippo Delbono), who at a formal family dinner, is asked to take the reins of the Milanese textile empire started from scratch by his retiring father. Their son Edoardo (Flavio Parenti) is chosen by his grandfather to work alongside his father in upholding the family’s proud name, though he soon has other projects in mind. He’s most passionate about establishing a restaurant with his talented chef friend Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini).
Slowly, Emma becomes mesmerised by the strikingly modest Antonio and his prodigious talents in the kitchen which inspire, in her, an almost sensual pleasure. For a while she hovers at the fringes, silently observant of him before venturing to the remote township where he and Edoardo want to establish their place of business. It’s here, after fabricating an excuse to visit her daughter Elisabetta (Alba Rohrwacher) in another city that she places herself in Antonio’s path, almost as if to probe for signals of a mutual attraction.
Their ensuing liaison is fraught with danger, the secrets they share laden with the power to harm so many people and bring Emma's family and their wealthy empire to its knees. For a woman who once expurgated her past to establish a new life in Italy, how simple would another similar negation of identity be if required to extricate herself from a difficult situation?
Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini) whose allure Emma finds hard to resist.
If you pare back I am Love (2009) to its core components you might not be left with a lot of meat on the bone, but Guadagnino is a skilled architect, weaving together a web of sumptuous visuals interspersed with elliptical fragments such as key revelatory moments that dissolve, out of focus, into ambiguity. There’s an element of mystery that creates a sensation of being dragged along in the wake of Emma’s fascination with Antonio. The early scenes play out like a merge of Visconti's The Leopard (1963) and Gosford Park (2001) before settling down into a narrative far less extravagent and complex.
Select scenes are swathed in overbearing operatic swirls of Adams’ propulsive music which although distracting, still exerts an essentially hypnotic pull. As the conclusion nears, the music rises up to seize the film as if by the throat, threatening to derail the performers who are simultaneously drowned out. It’s a daring creative choice, one that will probably fatally disturb the equilibrium, thus killing the moment for many.
Swinton is the film's glittering centrepiece. Here, she enhances her reputation as one of the most uninhibited performers in the world with another daring embrace of a role that may not stretch her as much as those in Orlando (1992), Young Adam (2003) or Julia (2008), but is just as compelling. Her luminescent, unconventional beauty is often beautifully back-lit by French cinematographer Yorick Le Saux’s use of misty, white-edged natural light.
There was little in Guadagnino’s previous effort, Melissa P.(2005) to suggest this masterfully crafted film was on the horizon. Its self-consciously detached, avant-garde approach to the subject matter will no doubt alienate as many as it captivates, but for anyone looking for a challenging night at the cinema, you’ll be in good hands with I am Love.
Emma (Tilda Swinton) with husband Tancredi Recchi (Pippo Delbono).
I AM LOVE (IO SONO L'AMORE) opens next week in Australia on June 24.
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