Io sono l’amore (Guadagnino, 2009)
My Winter Movies # 11
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I Am Love is a flimsy melodrama, so overly photographed and orchestrated that it can’t help but collapse under filmmaker Luca Guadagnino’s ineffable sense of bloat. In the opening, we don’t get a few snowy rooftops of Milan, but a tour. In a scene depicting lovers consummating their passion out of doors, we don’t get a few cutaway shots of nature but a biological study of every bug, blade and blossom. On the scenic ride up to a character’s home, we don’t get a vista but a tedious drag through country lanes, the camera recording every last turn and curve in the road. Were we going to be quizzed later on the actual directions? […] In the first act, when Antonio unexpectedly pays a visit to the Recchis, the camera tracks him as he slowly makes his way through the snow, a dark figure starkly silhouetted against an icy white backdrop, carrying what could be some implement of doom. Is it a gun? A knife? A bomb? We sit up in our seats, wondering if I Am Love is some kind of suspense thriller … but no, Antonio’s merely made a little cake that he wanted to bring to his friend. A similar event occurs in the second act, the music unnecessarily high-pitched and excitable, as Emma follows Antonio through the streets of San Remo. It doesn’t appear that Guadagnino is purposely trying to trick us; rather, he doesn’t seem schooled enough in the art of direction to appropriately correlate content with technique. Taking a pause in the cacophonous underpinnings, it must be noted that John Adams’ blaring soundtrack is so distracting, we long for earplugs. (More here.)
