I watched 'I Am Love' in bed last night on my iPhone...blimey technology's fun isn't it :)
It's on my Oscar-nominations-to-watch list because it's up for Best Costume Design and also I fancied watching it because it's something I wouldn't normally choose to watch.
The last time I choose something to watch that I wouldn't normally and hadn't heard anything about it was Get Low, and if you read my post about that you'll know it was a good move (btw why Robert Duvall isn't up for Best Actor is a mystery to me, thank goodness he got a nomination for a SAG).
Anyway - I Am Love - I liked it. It was well worth the watch.
Not everyone will love it (in fact there's a tremendous slating review of it I found subsequently from The Mirror: "Painfully slow and way too heavy on the symbolism - check out some shots of insects crawling over flowers during the sex scenes - it's a mock baroque yawnathon". Haha.)
It is languid and ponderous, it's heavy on the symbolism and the establishment of order, place and duty. But as I say I liked it - it's the sort of movie I would have loved to have had to critique and analyse at university, especially the thing that is so amazing in the film: the metamorphosis of Tilda Swinton as Emma, the impeccably dressed, coiffured and beautiful made-up Milanese heiress to......well, I won't spoil the movie for you, but I don't think it's going to come as much surprise if you consider the film's title whilst watching the opening sequences. It took a few minutes for me to register each change in her appearance outwardly displaying her inner transformations, but it is a work of art. Bravo to the director Luca Guadagnino, and Antonella Cannarozzi for the costume design which aids this metamorphosis.
It's a movie I would definitely watch again, because it's beautiful and lilting...I wonder if this is something about it being Italian, I noticed the same languidity in Zen which I grew to love (and which I'll be watching again hopefully on PBS Masterpiece Mystery). It also has a wonderful sequence driving through the hairpin roads in the foothills of Liguria which reminded me of fantastic holidays I've spent in Italy. Plus...I'd like to watch the beginning of the movie again and work out how they did Tilda Swinton's make-up to make it look so polished and yet so airy (I'm such a girl!)
I would be massively surprised if I Am Love picks up the Oscar for Best Costume Design against The King's Speech or Alice in Wonderland, both of which I've already seen (there are some SUPERB hats in The King's Speech let alone all the other costuming - Logue's tweed suits, Bertie's dress uniforms, and the costumes in Alice of Wonderland left me drooling and sad I didn't take my sketch pad into the cinema). Just the photos of Helen Mirren's costumes in The Tempest have left me without doubt that I Am Love doesn't really stand a chance.
But let's see if I'm wrong....as was said in Hong Kong Phooey in a totally different context - 'couuuld beeeee'.
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