Every once in a while a film materializes that forces one to redefine what cinema is capable of accomplishing -- thematically, emotionally, visually.
I Am Love (
Io Sono l’Amore), a maddeningly ambitious effort by 39-year-old Italian director Luca Guadagnino, epitomizes this idea. Guadagnino doesn’t simply tell a fascinating story; he has developed and enlists his own cinematic language. There are no arbitrary moves here; the writer-director has chosen every single shot to serve its own quiet purpose -- purposes alternately literal, functional, metaphoric, and purely aesthetic. The result is an unqualified masterpiece of the kind not seen in Italian cine...
Released:
2009
Rated:
R
Length:
120 mins