I Am Love

All the shots scream art and they are but not of the good variety. Only one shot got to me and it was a shot of the daughter up real close and you couldn't see her ears and can barely catch a glimpse of her hair. It was just face. It was intriguing in a humane way, if that makes sense. A bevy of shots from various angles of buildings, food, and such does nothing for me.

The drama is melodrama, but the heightening that comes along with the territory is less about emotion and more about the sensation of artistic significance. Brother obviously wants to go down in history as the next Visconti since you get the vibe that he's just doing a loose modern-set re-staging of The Leopard with this. The current of time is touched upon and is symbolized, strangely enough, by the Indian dude from The Life Aquatic. In an interesting twist (if you're being generous), the one that can't handle that the times are a-changin' is not either of the patriarchs but the son. And what happens to that son is designed to generate some extraneous drama and make some pronouncement about how time is unfair or some such nonsense.

The film is chiefly about an extramarital affair. The way this enterprise blossoms can best be described by myself like this: just imagine the scene in Ratatouille where the critic eats the titular treat, replace the critic with Tilda Swinton, replace the pack of cooking rats with a slightly goofy-looking Italian dude, and replace the critic's nostalgic reverie with Tilda thinking about "making love" to the Italian dude and you get an idea of this film's approach to romance.

Tilda's performance is impressive in terms of actorly dedication. She learned to speak another goddamn language for this part. Some looks on her face got to me near the end, but I've never liked her as much as I did in Benjamin Button.

The ending, with the swelling of music to disproportionate levels, tears and gestures signifying "big emotion," is obviously intended to have you experience a bunch of disparate feelings rushing through you all at once, but all it did was underline how much I didn't care.