CINEMA: I Am Love

It’s been a long time since Italian cinema last went through a golden phase, but two new releases out this year could mark the beginning of a renaissance.

Neither are masterpieces but what is extraordinary about them both is they follow no one’s lead, determinedly do their own thing and stylistically cut through conventions to offer up some beautiful images. Later on we’ll get to see Vincere, but this week it is I Am Love that is leading the way.

Starring the ever wonderful Tilda Swinton, I Am Love is a love poem dedicated to Italy, to beauty, to exquisite food and to love itself in all its guises – maternal, fraternal and amorous. Swinton is Emma, the matriarch of an extremely wealthy Milanese dynasty which has made its money in the textile industry. She has devoted her life to her older husband Tancredi (Pippo Delbono), who treats her like a trophy wife, and to her children, especially her beloved son Edo (Flavio Parenti) and daughter Betta (Alba Rohrwacher).

Her days are spent organising their large household and overseeing the duties of its many servants, but as her children grow up and move away from home she finds her life becoming emptier. Then, through Edo she meets Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), an extremely talented chef who dreams of opening his own restaurant.

When Emma visits him in the verdant Italian countryside at SanRemo, where he wants to build his restaurant, she feels her old life and her old self falling away from her and she begins a passionate affair with Antonio. This seeming act of rebellion in a woman who is so disciplined and ordered acts as the catalyst for Emma to begin a new stage of her life. But her newfound joy comes at a cost that tears her family apart forever.

There is something exquisite and meticulous about I Am Love – from the precision-cut clothing, through the smooth functioning of the household, to each tiny bite of gourmet food – that creates a backdrop of perfection to the stunning al fresco sex scene full of wild flowers, butterflies, bees and the gently bobbing heads of grasses.

Tilda Swinton, with her thoroughbred looks and long limbs, is perfectly cast speaking fluently in Italian throughout and even though the film’s ending feels slightly rushed there is a fluidity of movement to what proceeds it that makes watching it an effortless process – it simply washes over and through you, filling up your senses in the process.