CURRENT VIEWING: I AM LOVE: Luca Guadagnino

Swinton served as one of the producers of " I Am Love"

A friend recommended this film, suggesting it was my particular cup of tea. The costuming, she assured was something I'd be thrilled by. And I was, especially to see those Raf Simons Jil Sander moments brought to such beautiful life. But "I Am Love", shocked me not only for the clothes but specifically for its sheer, overflowing sumptuousness. The colors, textures and details of the faces, food, sex, furniture, statues, rain, hair, interiors, churches, skin and clothes were so sensual, if any of these things appeal to you then you start to feel as if you've moved inside the consciousness of this film, as opposed to just watching it. Guadagnino's orchestration of all of these elements , the dance of his camera over those details, his unusual framing and camera angles balanced against one of the best uses of color I've seen all year in a movie, makes for a sustained visual epiphany. But this is not just an empty and cold epiphany. It is a dramatically emotional one and the performance that Tilda Swinton delivers in "I Am Love" as a Russian trophy wife who inadvertently tears her perfectly composed family apart is such a masterpiece...forget awards..what she does here is performance as a high art. Beyond providing for herself, a great star turn to stand in her enviable pantheon of landmark films, Swinton served as one of the producers on "I Am Love", and her witty commentary along with Luca Guadagnino makes me rejoice in that particular bonus feature of the DVD.
At the film's end, there is a moment between mother and daughter so beautifully rendered , that you can understand every emotion coursing between them without a single word being said. Recently I had made a commitment to stop talking so much about the glories of Post-War European cinema , the period between 1950-1975 that gave us those masterpieces of Godard, Fellini, Resnais, Bunuel, Pasolini, Antonioni and Visconti. To put "I Am Love" in perspective, Guadagnino's gorgeous exploration of the hidden life of the Milanese haute-bourgeoise puts him squarely in that Visconti tradition where human feeling can shatter the most beautiful of surfaces. I can't wait to see what Guadagnino concocts next!