445 - I Am Love, Italy, 2009. Dir. Luca Guadagnino.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

445 - I Am Love, Italy, 2009.  Dir. Luca Guadagnino.

The Recchi family.  Three generations.  Wealthy from textiles.

The great dinner for grandfather's birthday.  His naming of his successors.  The pursuits of his children and grandchildren.

Here we have a film that takes its time.

Shots of architecture.  Art.  Nature.  Food.  Hand-held camera work.  The use of soft focus as a tool.  Blown-out lighting.  Intense montages in extreme close-up.  Juxtaposing nature with human nature.  Foley.  Lots of foley.  Sometimes music.  Bold music.  Birds flying.  Birds singing.  People behaving naturally, as in real life.  Understated acting.

And one fabulous mansion.

Emma is the mother.  The second generation.  Her son Edoardo Jr. has lost a rowing race to a chef named Antonio.  Recchis never lose races.

Antonio bakes him a cake as a gesture of good sportsmanship.  For a race well run.

Emma joins her girlfriends for lunch.  They eat at at the restaurant owned by Antonio's father.  He cooks there.  But he dreams of opening his own restaurant.  Atop a hill.  People will climb.  They will work up an appetite.  They will eat fresh ingredients picked from the hillside.

Antonio serves Emma ratatouille.  Anton Ego on his greatest day could never fathom the depths of pleasure Emma feels in that moment.

When you see her face you will want to have what she is having.

And you will know in that moment her life will never be the same.

The Recchis make clothing in a factory.  Antonio makes food with his hands.

Emma goes to Nice to see her daughter's art exhibit.  Or goes towards Nice.  She stops in San Remo.  Milan.

She walks with Vertigo hair.

She runs into Antonio.

Come up the hillside with me.  Let me show you where I am going to build the restaurant.

Someone is going to get vertigo.


The Indian American refers to Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy.  One of them provides a template for a theme of the film.


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Our Lord Jesus Christ, who after resting three days in the sepulcher gave assurance of resurrection to those who believe in You, let our brother _____ rest in peace until the day You, the Resurrection and the Life, will illuminate him with the splendor of Your vision so that he may see the glory of Your Kingdom, You who live and reign eternally.  Amen.

Give him everlasting rest and eternal peace in the glory of Your light.  Amen.