I AM LOVE

I AM LOVE……

Is flawless and the finest film I have experienced in years. It lacerated my very core leaving a crater of such magnitude, a wound, that after the pain of poignancy has evaporated the scar tissue left in its wake will leave a treasured reminder, a tattoo to be savored, and guarded for the remainder of my life.   

Luca Guadagnino has created a masterpiece at the Michelangelo level: Tilda Swinton (also a producer) is his canvas. She is Emma, a Russian émigré; married into an Italian textile dynasty; the mother of two talented and ethereally beautiful children. She is detached, glacial, and floats, perfectly coiffed in designer couturiere through the magically magnificent world of wealth, refinement and privilege; she is an observer until……love shatters her pristine, crystal façade.

You rarely see a film so perfectly balanced, visually, aesthetically, musically. The camera, like Casanova strokes with tenderness and intimacy all it encounters; there is no hierarchy, every individual and object is given the same smothering, passionate embrace, reminiscent of an Andy Warhol Silkscreen.

John Adams, the minimalist composer has divined a score that will resonate forever in the sanctified halls of iconic movie soundtracks. His musical interpretation is the unspoken language, not heard but envisioned in the minds of the actors; the emotional content so chaste that one groaned with its intensity and purity.

Cuisine is the golden thread that weaves its delectable delights, the roux that binds and nourishes all the pivotal scenes, salivating with its carnality, rising as the quintessential pastry to the pinnacle of love. Guadagnino uses a Michelin starred chef to mold his “epicurean wizardry”; each tasted and swallowed morsel, sensual, personal, a metaphor for love.

We witness a love so profound, sublime that it transcends all else and the cinematography, photography, music are the match makers, complicit in the consummation, culmination of the redolent, unique recipe for a life long passion, obsession.

This film should be viewed more than once. The poet John Keats wrote:

A thing of Beauty is a joy for ever,
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness…….

“I Am Love” portrays a pairing like the Sarus Crane found in some parts of India. They meet, mate, share a soul; when one perishes the other follows, the only reason for living has passed into nothingness.

FIVE STARS!!!!!

For Now……………Peneflix

Do NOT leave the theatre until the screen is dark!