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Friday, July 2, 2010

I spend a lot of my time nose deep in to old films.  It hasn't always been that way.  I spent much, much, of my youth and early twenties reveling in the world of The New American film movement.  I toiled my way through anything produced by the superstars of the field.  The Andersons, the Coens, the Coppolas - each and all got my unwavering attention.  Sadly, when not dipping my head in to their modern worlds, I was giving myself excuses to saunter in to the summer blockbusters, waste twenty bones on a bag of popcorn, a ticket and a coke, and walk away nauseous from the corn and the stupidity.  I'd always been curious about old films, but somehow I'd come to believe they were slow moving, corny, not up my alley.  Yet, thanks to the fine work of my college film teacher and the always impressive out put of The Criterion Collection, I changed my weary ways.






Review - I Am Love

These days, it's more film noir and Italian neo-realism than explosions and Bruce Willis' shiny pate.  Strangely, it's made my ability to bear blockbuster crap even less.  That black and white talkies from the 1930s can be so enjoyable when nary a CGI dinosaur appears on screen makes me look even further down my nose at the shit that oozes from our silver screens.  We are immersed in bad filmmaking these days that pays no homage or reference to the amazing films that preceded it.  Yet Luca Guadagnino's breathtaking ode to the Italian films of yesteryear steps above and beyond modern filmmaking, boldly acknowledging its forebears, while blazing an impressive path of its own.

Tilda Swinton is hands down the best actor working today, seemingly unable to pick a bad role, and completely unable to portray anything poorly.  I Am Love is the story of the Recchi family, an Italian family long steeped in the upper-upper classes of Milan. Swinton plays Emma Recchi, the matriarch and centerpiece of the Recchi clan who must deal with the unraveling of her family, and herself, in the wake of the death of her father-in-law (Gabriele Ferzetti).  This is a film with a classic theme: rich families, all families, hide secrets close to the surface and events, small or large, are prime to unveil them.

And this classic theme is portrayed quite classically on the screen.  Though director Guadagnino crafts his characters as tiny safes, their emotions locked within, he does not shy from boldly paying his dues to the films that came before.  I Am Love is a virtual painting of a film, each shot so artfully crafted, you want to reach out check to see if its oil or a reprint.  A love scene in the middle of the film is so sensual, so stirring, I found myself turning towards my girlfriend, mouth agape, eyes raised.  John Adams score is equally as impressive, bold and wonderfully alive in a way modern film fails to comprehend.  His music, and Swinton's outstanding performance as an upper-class woman finally seeing the walls of her prison, sit at the heart of the film.  The rest of the cast is impressive in all ways, but these two are the lynchpins, the glue that moves the film.

I Am Love is a classical painting mixed with the themes of Shakespearean literature wrapped in an opera and squeezed in to the mold of a film. It bears the scarlet mark of an amazing tragedy, and if you aren't squirming in your seat as the final credits roll, I stand impressed.  Please Hollywood, look at this film, look at its creation, its ode to the past, this is where the future lies.

 



 

Noah Sanders is the blog/news editor at Light In The Attic and a contributor at Sound On The Sound and the KEXP blog.  He also has his own Criterion-based film site, Criterion Quest.   If you'd like to contact Noah in regards to his writings here at Side One: Track One then please do so here.


- Noah Sanders - - Digg!




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