"Io Sono L'amore" ("I Am Love") Movie Review

The sweeping, yet intimate cinematography of Yorick Le Saux, returns to the textures of Oscar winner, Tilda Swinton in the Italian film, "Io sono l'amore" ("I am Love"). Yorick Le Saux first captured Swinton in the renowned 2008 film "Julia." "I am Love", written and directed by Luca Guadagnino who also co-produced with Swinton, provides the acclaimed actress with fertile melodramatics within the Italian bourgeoisie. What more could one ask in a melodrama with gorgeously shot Italian villas and architecture, pretentious cuisine, fashion and art, beautiful family and friends.

Then there are the textures of Tilda Swinton with her unusual beauty manifest as inner-turmoil, held at bay like a sea captain in the storm of the century. Her involvement as a producer, no doubt, insured that every ounce of her performance was captured in the gestalt of a phenomenal production. While the script itself has suffered from some criticism for not keeping momentum with such driven performances, gripping editing and cinematography, one hardly notices.

The imagery is too astounding and the characters transcend into a fourth dimension of emotional transference. The American Society of Cinematographers recently gave "I am Love" a glowing review for its visual accomplishments. Then there is the pulsating music of a soundtrack seemingly born for cinema yet never heard on screen. The award-winning American composer, John Adams has permitted the use of his music in film for the first time with "I am Love." Well known for his minimalist style, his operas Nixon in China and Doctor Atomic, as well as his Pulitzer Prize winning On the Transmigration of Souls, Adams's music is uniquely equal to the cinematic presence of Philip Glass.

Unlike Glass and his repetitive bliss, Adams's music is more buoyant and melodic providing yet another textured experience for "I am Love." The film's music pushes "I am Love" into a new level of melodrama, where the sensuality of cinema reaches rapture. Guadagnino's style of filmmaking is born of the raw energy of Italy's master Luchino Visconti, a surreal attention to detail like Douglas Sirk and the tension of Alfred Hitchcock.

There are several noted mentions to the above masters of film, Visconti, Sirk and Hitchcock and their place in "I am Love."¹ Perhaps most obvious is the sidewalk stalking scene, with Tilda Swinton in pursuit of her adulterous desires. As she ducks for cover in a little sidewalk shop in Sanremo, the camera closes in on her tightly swirled hair bun as homage to Hitchcock's masterpiece "Vertigo." The film is filled with references to the boldness and beauty of cinema, yet as Guadagnino hoped proves a truly original vision.

"I am Love" transcends the melodrama yet again with two of the most sensual sequences put on film in years. It captures a human eroticism with food, as Tilda Swinton drifts sensually into a titillating meal. The scene carries a symbolic journey, as she takes the desires of her erotic meal straight to the source; making love to the chef in his garden. The garden scene is other worldly in its rawness, with visual totems of nature edited beautifully as their bodies harvest the ground with passion.

The film has a grandiose climax with a stirring transformation from Tilda Swinton's character, Emma Recchi. Free from any meaningful dialogue, the performances speak volumes as Saux's cinematography and Walter Fassano's editing spin her world out of control. All the while Adam's music carries Emma Recchi's transformative breakthrough from within the chaos of imagery and cuts tearing her familial structure apart.

"I am Love" is a powerful experience, without the burden of being a lesson in love so cumbersome in most melodramas. Most of all the film is a gala of sensation for lovers of cinema.

Sources:
(1) Film Journal Review by David Noh and Phil on Film Blog