Friday Film Review-I Am Love (Io sono l'amore ) (2010)

Friday, 14 October 2011.

2 Italian melodramas in 2 weeks? Next week I promise I will mix it up! I Am Love is a well crafted film by anyone's standards. It begins in a large Italian estate in the middle of winter.  Tilda Swinton is Emma, the Russian wife of a wealth Italian. The family is gathering for the birthday celebration of their grandfather, who is going to name his heir. The party is interrupted later by a young man who won a race with the grandson, Edo (Flavio Parenti), earlier that day, bringing a box of something. Seeing him trudge through the snow I thought for certain he was bringing a bomb or something equally ominous to the family but instead he brings a cake. Edo and Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini) (the cake bringer) become friends and make plans to open a restaurant. Emma, her mother-in-law  a stunning Marisa Berenson and Edo's girlfriend, Eva (Diane Fleri) visit the restaurant were Emma has the first ever human-shrimp sex scene. She is so enamoured of the food that she chases down Antonio, outside the restaurant and later in town. They proceed to his remote house in the countryside where they have a lot of sex and fall in love. At first I thought the film was going to avoid giving the audience sex in any form but instead we get a lot of it. At first glance sex scenes juxtaposed with shots of flowers opening and closing, bugs going in and out of said flowers, is sensual but it's hard to deny that it is also very obvious. In the meantime the family business has been sold and Edo is very unhappy although he never reveals exactly why. Tragedy strikes the family while they are at a dinner party and from there, this so far slow and sensual film, quickly churns to it's dramatic closing. 

It must be universally excepted that Tilda Swinton is a great actress and her performance here is   fantastic, as would be expected. Mirrored scenes of Emma being undressed by Antonio and later by her housekeeper, of Emma's daughter with short hair and then Emma later cutting hers off, etc give the film a multi-layered feel. Attraction, love, sexual attraction in this film seems to flow between everyone. There is something sexual about the relationships between, well, everyone, parents and children and Emma and her housekeeper. Early on Emma discovers that her daughter Betta (Alba Rohrwacher-who's resemblance to Tilda Swinton is remarkable) is a lesbian but it is Edo's relationship with Antonio that is truly homoerotic. When Edo discovers the affair it is hard to know whether he is angry at his mother or jealous for Antonio's affections. The film's best quality is it's refusal to make a statement of any kind about the actions of the characters. The film is about a family unravelling but it certainly isn't making a statement, it doesn't give blame or imply that their should be blame. We are simply watching these characters as third person observers. The final scenes of the film are beautiful and in fact, make the whole film worth watching, quick shots between characters, facial close-ups and a great score give this scene a larger than life quality. The film has great music, the costuming was perfect and every performance was a great one. Although it veers towards being too dramatic at times the film is over all a sensual feast for the eyes and a testament to great acting.