- Places I did not expect to find nauseating camera shake: this movie. Surprise! You know how much I love this. In moments like these I always think of the calm IMAX narrator who used to tell you that if you feel sick, you should put your head between your knees and the feeling will pass.
- Have I mentioned before that I love Tilda Swinton? I haven’t seen nearly enough of her work but she always dazzles me in pretty much everything. This photo demonstrates to perfection why Tilda Swinton is terribly awesome.
She is absolutely striking and completely out of this world, and I mean that in the truly alien sense of the term. I think she must be from another planet; Earth cannot contain her fierceness.
- The fashion was quite fabulous in this. Tilda Swinton as Emma wears all these fabulous sheath dresses that are 1960s in spirit but with a modern edge. The geometric-patterned drapey shawl thing (TECHNICAL TERMS!) she wore at towards the end was a little over the top but it seemed to mirror the garments worn by the woman in the portrait in the book she got in San Remo, so that was a nice touch.
- That said, I can’t stand it when I have no idea what year it is in a movie or, more specifically, when the year is non-specific but then something just jumps out at you and situates the film squarely in a specific time frame. The movie came across as being in the present day, or close to, despite all of the 1960s stylish overtones. Whether or not it was 1966 or 2010 didn’t really matter, but then Emma’s daughter Betta randomly shows up in one scene using what is apparently an iBook SE and suddenly it’s absolutely the year 2000.
- This movie is oddly stylistically formal, which I suppose is part of its aesthetic appeal while simultaneously keeping me at arm’s length and preventing me from taking any deep interest in any of the characters.
- This family throws a lot of dinner parties, wow. And yet, all the food symbolism ended up falling a little flat. This movie trades heavily on ye olde favourite cooking-as-sex metaphor, but it does it in fits and spurts before culminating with a weird Oedipal moment related to Emma’s son’s favourite soup. (Yes.)
- The final scenes are spectacularly melodramatic in the Written on the Wind sense of the term, not the reality TV version. The score was a little overwhelming during the whole sequence where Emma decides to flee her old life and Edoardo’s untimely death was a little silly
- Am I to infer that Eva was in the process of miscarrying her child? Because that’s what I got out of it.
- Vikram from The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou was in this and that made me happy.
- I loved how they spend about five minutes in London during the “London” act. I also love that, as per usual, all offices in movies are furnished with Eames chairs.
- Ultimately, I am not in love with this.
I Am Love
As Principal Scudworth says, it’s like eating in the private kitchen of a delightful Italian stereotype!
IMDB Plot Synopsis A tragic love story set at the turn of the millennium in Milan. The film follows the fall of the haute bourgeoisie due to the forces of passion and unconditional love.