When I think about great Italian movies I think about Neo-realism: Antonioni, Visconti; denouncing the eternal perfidy of the rich. I watch a rich and restless Monica Vitti or Jeanne Moreau unhappily walking the deserted streets in La Notte, the young and the rich at play in L’Avventura, the fascist leanings of the aristocracy in El primo de la Revolucione, the decline of the nobility in Il Gattopardo (1963), the indulgence in luxury in La Dolce Vita, and a fabulously outfitted but soundless Sylvana Mangano playing a Fin the Siècle, Polish Comtessa to the hilt in Death in Venice (1971). Undoubtedly some elements of these movies are quoted in I ‘Am Love. Like in the resolution of the movie, when the tragic heroine is flowingly dressed in grey silk crepe de chine. Which made me think of the divine Alida Valli, who lied, stole and murdered for her younger lover in Senso by Visconti. The indulging depiction of live, joy, illicit love and sorrow among the extremely rich or the aristocratic Italians, the intellectualism, the beauty of Renaissance buildings, well dressed people and their skilled servants. I Am Love has all these gratifying elements and shows the dissolution of the Old World, of a great Italian family, weavers of cloth, caught up by the changing economic realities of globalism and having to sell their business. The family will be even richer, but cut off from artisan traditions and creativity. The East is dawning, represented by a mysterious turbaned figure, taking over the economic role of the West.
The story is old fashioned, a history about adultery by a wife that can only be sanctioned in a biblical way. The violation of the sacred bonds of matrimony has to be punished by the death of a loved one; to make the perpetrator forever repent this greatest of moral transgressions. It needs a suitably elevated, traditional and dramatic foil; like a great patriarchal family in a magnificent palace, which could only have survived by many generations maintaining discipline, judicious marriages, strict manners and the keeping of traditions. Emma is a Russian, not an Italian, so by marrying below and outside the group, the misalliance, the pater familias’ son had introduced an element of uncertainty. A patrician Italian wife of the same background, bringing connections and wealth to the alliance, would have known how to behave, how to maintain face. The unsuitableness of that marriage is more keenly felt if one realises that Russia was also a communist society, dedicated to the eradication of class. Her nickname seems to point to Jane Austen’s famous novel about the dangers of mixing the low with the high. Emma, from a background of restaurateurs, foolishly takes a young cook Antonio as her lover and allows herself to have a crazy attachment, risking everything to be with him. There was never a more dangerous kiss then when Emma, trancelike, quitting the circle of her dinner guests and family for a moment, and descending the stairs in state, to quickly kiss her lover where they could have been seen. As in Emma, the rather obscure cook, a creative and entrepreneurial force, represents the future; the new elite. Suitably, Emma’s downfall is precipitated by a family dish, the surrendering by her of a family secret, the proof of an illicit alliance.
I was pleasantly surprised to read that the man’s suits were provided by Fendi and gowns by Jill Sander. It’s like I would read in the old movies that Tidjani di Roma supplied the sumptuous furs. A recognizable piece of the real world; a standard of luxury, in a piece of movie fiction. The look of the movie is flawless, not one unbecoming image and timeless in an elementary sort of way. Like a dish made with only a few choice ingredients, this movie dissects sensuality, whether its food, the enjoyment of Renaissance architecture, modern art, luxury, nature, lust or love. Poetic images of nature, mountains, and mosaic floors, weathered walls, old statues; pay homage to artisanship. A lot is conveyed through images, and the tragic end is played out almost devoid of dialogue. Even sound is then repressed and we are spell bounded watching instead of hearing a mournful aria enveloping and coming to a conclusion. The grandiose ending is operatic, one other powerful element of Italian culture, next to architecture, design and food. Funerary statues, slate grey, getting stained by incessant raindrops are the most beautiful and moving representation of tears I have ever seen!
There are touches of realism, which deeply hurt, like the face of the aging Marisa Berenson. One is shown that a lot of work has been done to restore what nature has taken away. But it always distresses me in a profound way to see that a famous icon of beauty has succumbed to ageing. It’s like a desecration. The protagonist is Tilda Swinton, called Emma; (is also co-producing), and appears completely nude, showing her aging breasts in detail next to the young body of her lover. This is the use of verisimilitude in a most profound and confrontational way. Realism is eminent in the depiction of servants and the invisible, but prominent role they really play. Servants are the greatest luxury in my mind. At times the truly rich look like theatre players who are raised, soothed, fed, prepped, dressed and told how to act by their major domo and her silent staff of footmen, nannies and personal maids. Servants who take great pride in their profession to serve, to protect their superiors, to maintain an old tradition. Like the female butler, who has probably been with the family forever, still declining an invitation to dine tête à tête with her mistress. The high and mighty are nothing without these people who take care of them and also care for them. It’s the phalanx of servants that define them as superior and refined, by the daily order, punctuality and the scrupulous maintaining of standards of propriety and decorum. I feel that a lot of what is wrong today is that people don’t understand the function of real luxury, where one will spend all his money, if he has only a little, to keep a well paid housekeeper, a nanny, a driver. One could be knocking about in old, faded and mended clothes and shoes and eat meat only once a week, yet be secure in the knowledge that the household is running smoothly and the precious children are constantly being watched and cared for. These are not luxuries you wear on your back in order to impress other people, but precious blessings to have your hands and your mind free to be gentle and accomplished, to be able to truly maintain individualism and human relations, and to advance science and culture.
Although the makers allude to the hypocrisy in the exploitation practices of the rich, the makers are reactionary by siding with the rich against de poor by maintaining the erroneous idea that they make history and preserve order and urging them to change with the times to keep them from losing their position. Enjoying such a movie is to me as satisfying a guilty indulgence. A true revolutionary should not feel any compassion or sadness for these capitalists swimming in luxury and exploiting the poor to prop them up and giving them shattering orgasms too. A proper film should have shown them clubbed to death by the major domo who is the secret leader of the revolutionary movement.
Egmond Codfried Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
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