I am Love

I am Love was a sensory experience. Never has simply watching a film created so many different sensations in my mind body and soul. Truly an operatic presentation, the movie moves through many different settings, conflicts, and emotions, it is sometimes hard to understand which characters are the most important, the most tragic, the most villainous. A portrait of real life, the characters hurtle towards destruction with only selfish simply happiness in mind.
The story centers on Emma, a native Russian, brought to Italy be her wealthy sweetheart when she was very young. Over the years she has been groomed and polished for the family's very public business life and while she seems very content, Emma soon realized that she has been asleep for most of her life and refused to be caught on the sidelines. Unfortunately, these realizations come at a very inopportune time, as the family is going through other traumatic changes- the grandfather, the head of the family, has just died and left the family business to his son and his grandson, who has differing views on what is to become of the family's name sake. Also, the daughter is having her own identity crisis as she comes to term with the fact that she is a lesbian.
Personally, three things stood out most dramatically- the score, the costumes, and the editing. Without the genius, emotional score of John Adams this movie would have no soul. A key scene in which Emma, played by Tilda Swinton, falls in love with Antonio through his food. Without the tones and the colors of the orchestral music, we could very well be led to watch a silly taste bud orgasm. The costumes, mostly chic Italian designer dresses and suits demonstrate the stiff upper class attitudes of the Milan, while the rustic linen of the country personifies the freedom of the younger idealistic sensibilities of Gianluca, Elissabetta, and Antonia. Lastly, the editing. Blew. My. Mind. The scene in which Emma goes to visit her daughter and instead follows Antonio is so climactic and intense, you feel as if you are literally hurrying after them as well.