Patrick McElroy on Luca Guadagnino's I AM LOVE
In recent years one of the most sought-after filmmakers is Italian director Luca Guadagnino. With recent works that include Call Me By Your Name, a reimagining of Suspiria, an acclaimed HBO miniseries We Are Who We Are, along with upcoming projects that include Bones & All, remakes of both Scarface, and Brideshead Revisited. He’s someone who’s been recognized for his unique style, and themes, proving himself to be well versed in film history, and art. With his 50th birthday this week, I felt it was the right time to discuss what I believe to be his finest work, his 2009 masterpiece I Am Love.
The film focuses on the Recchi family, a wealthy family that owns a textile manufacturing plant in Milan. Tancredi (Pippo Delbono) is the second generation in the family, for more than two decades he’s been married to Emma (Tilda Swinton), a Russian who left her home country to be with her husband and live a luxurious life. Together they have three adult children, Edoardo Jr. (Flavio Parenti), who’s engaged to marry Eva (Diane Flare), who’s from a prominent family, while his grandfather Edoardo Sr. (Gabriele Ferzetti) has recently passed his business on to him and his father. Gianluca (Mattia Zaccar) and Elisabetta (Alba Rohrwacher), have less interest in the family business, the movie doesn’t spend as much time with Gianluca, but Elisabetta is one of the films most fascinating characters. She’s an art student in London, who reveals in a letter to Edoardo Jr. that she’s a lesbian, who’s fallen passionately in love with another woman. When Emma reads this, she’s reminded of a passion that she hasn’t felt in years due to the staling of her marriage to Tancredi, and a life suffocated in materialism. While eating lunch at an exquisite restaurant with her mother-in-law Rori (Marisa Berenson), and Eva, Emma has a dish that awakens those passions in her.
The dish is cooked by Edoardo Jr.s friends chef Antonio, after a series of run ins she has with him, they begin a lustful affair, where she releases the passions that she’s been longing for. While we may live different lifestyles from Emma, we all share the same desires she has, as do all the characters in the film whether they deny it or not. One of the most significant influences on the film, is that of Italian Auteur Luchino Visconti, with masterpieces such as Senso, The Leopard, and L’Innocente. Visconti’s films explore the lives of aristocratic figures in times of a changing society, with a sense of elegance, lush sets, and grand landscapes. What Guadagnino does with his camera moves in this film is the work of a true craftsman, the camera glides through the grand architectures with such smoothness, and elegance, reminiscent of what Martin Scorsese and Michael Ballhaus’ did with The Age of Innocence. There are also Hitchcockian moments of characters following each other on the streets with POV shots, and reverse tracking shots.
What Guadagnino has done as a filmmaker is showcase the diversity of his talents, changing his style with each film, to also show his love of film history. This was the first film in his career to reveal that, and of all the movies he’s made so far, this is the one that I think best exemplifies him.
Patrick McElroy is a movie writer and movie lover based in Los Angeles. Check out his other writing at: https://www.facebook.com/patrick.mcelroy.3726 or his IG: @mcelroy.patrick