I Am Love (Io sono l'amore) (2010)

There is a fine tradition in Italian cinema, in which characters are doomed to pay extravagant prices for even the tiniest of pleasures. From the cursed, lower-class protagonist of The Bicycle Thief, to the tortured director at the heart of 8 1/2 ; according to Italians, the universe doesn’t dole out any good without following it up with something bad. The Recchi family at the center of Luca Guadagnino’s I Am Love are not exempt from this cinematic jinx. This rather pessimistic tradition is very much embedded in Italian culture. Having come from a (highly superstitious) Italian family myself, I’m well versed in the theory of “malocchio” (evil eye); the idea that negative thoughts - and perhaps the occasional curse - from one’s enemies can manifest as actual physical pain or outrageously bad luck. I would call it poppycock, if only I hadn’t been raised to be wary of angering whichever force handed out karmic retribution.

There is nary a whisper of religion, rumour or spirituality in I Am Love, but I couldn’t help but wonder if the misfortune of the film’s characters was the result of some “malocchio”. Perhaps the Recchi’s were cursed from beyond the grave by the family’s patriarch Edoardo (Gabriele Ferzetti), who had left the Earthly plane wishing for his descendants to honour his name and business. Instead, they begin frowned-upon affairs and threaten to dismantle the family company to become, as one character says, “even richer”. Surely they were asking for cosmic punishment.

Much like Michael Haneke’s Hidden, I Am Love presents us with a portrait of a bourgeois family who are tortured for the disastrous crimes for which they are responsible. Partly responsible, but responsible nonetheless. The difference is that Haneke hates his upper-crust characters (going so far as to relish their slaughter in Funny Games – twice!), whereas Guadagnino is sympathetic, even as they go about living lives driven by personal pleasure and financial gain.

Tilda Swinton - as graceful and restrained as ever - stars as Emma, the lonely wife of Edoardo’s son Tancredi (Pippo Delbono). She adores her children - Edoardo Jr. (Flavio Parenti) and Elisabetta (Alba Rohwacher) – but has grown tired of being merely a hostess for their family’s parties and social gatherings. She’s shaken from her waking-slumber after meeting Edoardo Jr.’s friend Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini); a chef with near-transcendent talents in the kitchen. Inspired by her daughter’s secret lesbian relationship, she toys with the possibility of having an affair of her own.

At first it seems as if I Am Love will be about a bored housewife who flees from the doldrums of her meaningless existence via a saucy affair (and it is). Most films of this nature end with the wife making her glorious escape. However, I Am Love is bolder. It features a shocking climax – one which caused me to audibly gasp “Oh My God” - that forces its characters (not just the housewife) to contemplate the terrible ramifications of their choices. Guadagnino does indeed make them suffer (Haneke-style), but then offers them the opportunity to seek freedom. Some do, some don’t. Those that do, earn it.

Composer John Adams, cinematographer Yorick Le Saux and editor Walter Fasano perfectly complement one another; they know exactly when they must be calm, and when they must be chaotic. They do so in perfect synchronicity. Guadagnino acts like a mad composer, trying to combine deliberate pacing with frenzied melodrama; fortissimo followed by pianissimo followed by fortissimo and over and over again in quick succession, as if Bugs Bunny himself were running the show. Only when the film’s shocking climax arrives – in a moment of pure pianissimo no less – does the full scope of his opus come into perspective. When the picture ends in full-blown, melodramatic, raise-the-roof fortissimo, we realise everything that had come before (the highs and the lows) was a tantric tease of a crescendo, leading up to an almighty finale. I Am Love requires patience, but it’s worth it.

4/5

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