I Am Love Film
From:November 16, 2010 20:00 to: November 16, 2010 22:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
I Am Love
(Dir: Luca Guadagnino, Italy, 2009)
Set in Milan’s upper classes, in the Art Deco villa of the wealthy Recchi family, this is a film about repression and breaking free. At a formal lunch party which plays out like a modern-day Italian take on Gosford Park, ailing scion Edoardo Sr (Gabriele Ferzetti) celebrates his birthday by passing the business on to his son, Tancredi (Pippo Delbono), and, unexpectedly, his grandson Edoardo (Flavio Parenti), the beloved heart of the family.Although coolly beautiful and seemingly in control of her surroundings, Tancredi’s wife, Emma (Tilda Swinton) is evidently not entirely at ease: they have another son, Gianluca (Mattia Zaccaro) and a daughter Elizabeth (Alba Rohrwacher) who is an artist, and, it is later revealed, a lesbian.
Fatefully, during that same evening, Eduardo Jr introduces his mother to his friend Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), a chef, with whom he plans to set up a business.
Later, Emma, a Russian émigré and facing into an empty nest, takes a trip to Sanremo and encounters Antonio there, as Edoardo Jr struggles against his role in the business during a trip to London. Wonderful performances by Swinton, Marisa Berenson as Edoardo Snr’s wife Allegra, Maria Paiato as housekeeper Ida and Alba Rohrwacher as the newly-liberated daughter, whose actions are evidently a turning point for her mother, do full justice to the script and the beauty of the visuals on show.
The finale is magnificent, satisfyingly-operatic, melodrama, with Paiato and Swinton working together particularly well.
Adm: €7 (seasonal membership rates available).
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