Mighty Passions Kept at Arm's Length

    The film “I Am Loveâ€� is a feast for the eyes and the senses. It is sumptuous, gorgeous, self-indulgent, melodramatic, derivative and wildly original.  And while it is easy to admire director Luca Guadagnino’s flourish and technique, it is not so easy to like the film.

   Guadagnino has divided the movie into two parts:  an excessively slow, long introduction to the members and lifestyle of a rich Milanese family that will disintegrate in the second part. What holds these halves together is a marvelous performance by Tilda Swinton, the androgynous actress who can shift from quiet, obedient wife to sexually voracious lover with ease. But Guadagnino’s pace and style keep us at arm’s length.  We observe Swinton’s Emma with detachment, not connection.

   “I Am Loveâ€� concerns the Recchi clan, rich textile-mill owners. At a Christmas season 80th birthday dinner for the patriarch, Edoardo (Gabriele Ferzetti), the family learns that he plans to leave control of the business to both his son, Tancredi (Pippo Delbono), as expected, and to one of Tancredi’s sons, Edo (Flavio Parenti). The family is surprised, and tension between Tancredi and Edo will soon surface, since Tancredi wants to sell to a global firm, while Edo wants to keep the business private.

   Emma observes this family drama with the interest of an outsider.  She is a Russian whom Tancredi met on an art-buying trip, later married and brought back to Milan like an exotic picture.  She learned Italian and speaks it with a Russian accent.  (Swinton, a non-Italian speaker, learned her lines from a Russian-accented coach.)  

   At the end of the dinner, a chef named Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini) comes to the front door of the Recchi mansion to give his new friend Edo a Christmas cake. Emma sees him, and the triangle that will bring freedom to Emma and tragedy to the family is in place.

   In the second half of the film, Emma goes to San Remo (to visit her daughter, a lesbian “outâ€� only to her mother and Edo), spies Antonio and in a series of remarkable tracking shots follows him. She finally comes face to face with him and goes to his secluded house in the gorgeous Ligurian hills.  They begin a passionate affair, eventually discovered by Edo. His feeling of betrayal leads to the film’s melodramatic ending.

   Guadagnino is obviously a talented director bursting with knowledge of the great directors of Italian film and opera but with original ideas of his own.  (Visconti and Zeffirelli come to mind. And Antonioni. Tancredi is even the name of the prince’s son in Visconti’s great “The Leopard.â€�)     

   The moody shots of Milan in snow that appear under the opening credits are so stark and subdued that you think he has shot in black and white.  In the long, outdoor sexual encounter between Emma and Antonio in the second half of the film, Guadagnino catches the languor of summer in frames of flowers and bees and sunlight on trees and grass.  Of course,  the couple’s slow lovemaking is equally languorous, sort of “Sons and Loversâ€� redux.

   But he also loves a fast moving camera. Tracking shots, hand-held camera work and even shots from a camera attached to a truck hood are often so fast and jittery that your eyes and head begin to hurt.  And he almost wallows in symbolism:  Emma eats shrimp prepared by Antonio and has a contained but obviously sensual revelation;  Antonio cuts her long hair after their first coupling; birds fly out of open windows to freedom; Emma’s only sympathizer at the end is her lesbian daughter, also an outsider, and one who understands deep and destructive passions.

   Guadagnino’s attention to detail is total.

   The luxurious life of the Milanese wealthy is revealed at home — every part of the Recchi mansion is explored by his camera — and outside, as Emma shops and then lunches with her mother-in-law, Allegra, a plasticized but still compelling Marisa Berenson.

   Emma’s clothes by Armani, Fendi and Jil Sander are a fashionista’s dream — simple, elegant, luxurious, expensive.  And Swinton wears them elegantly on her model’s body. Then there is the annoying, over-the-top score by John Adams.

   Often inappropriate (the music when Emma is following Antonio might have been composed for a spy thriller) or needlessly literal (there is a continual “heartbeatâ€� under the music of the long sex scene), the music constantly calls attention to itself.

    “I Am Loveâ€� is a film for people who love visual style and don’t mind slow pace and storytelling or for those who relish a great performance.

    Swinton’s cool, alabaster presence is just right for the Russian outsider in her own home; her fierce passion is right for the love scenes; and her bewildered, caught-in-the-headlights expression is right for the tragedy.

    And in the final scene — the finest in the film — as she looks at her daughter, the other outsider, for approval and benediction, she is incomparable.

     “I Am Loveâ€� is playing at The Moviehouse in Millerton,NY, The Triplex in Great Barrington, MA, and the Bantam Cinema, Bantam, CT.  The film is in Italian with English subtitles and is rated R for sexuality and nudity.