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    Disappointed

    I've recently been to see three films, all of which I was really keen to see.

    "Shutter Island" - cracking Saturday night entertainment. Won't hear a word said against it.

    However, the other two...

    "The Ghost" - what a flimsy piece that is. Kim C is dreadful, though pleasing to the eye. Ewan McGregor is as dependably good as ever, bringing a real sense of haplessness to the character. Pierce Brosnan simply doesn't have enough to do. And the story simply isn't up to the length it takes to tel. Poor. Wait for it on dvd.

    But, the other one really takes the biscuit - "I Am Love". Dear Lord, what a tedious pile of self-indulgent wank. I was worried that it may simply have been a vanity project for la Swinton. And guess what? It is. I saw this today on the Guardian web-site "...As Swinton herself says: "For over ten years, Luca and I have been discussing our mutual desire for a kind of cinema experience. Something, literally, sensational, what might be called 'pure cinema', what we think of as the language of cinema – as opposed to the language of anything else. A large part of this discussion has always been our worship of the films of certain filmmakers from the past - Hitchcock, Huston, Kubrick, for example - whose claim on the development of the cinematic language is unassailable: they pushed the form by using the form, as a toolkit, with real authority. I Am Love is the first of a series of films we have been planning for a while to attempt to honour this kind of bravado."(My emphasis).

    Be afraid. Very Afraid.

    #2
    Disappointed

    I absolutely loved I am Love but as I said in the Current Watching Thread, I saw it at a screening where the director and Tilda Swinton introduced the film. Huston is mentioned for his last film The Dead which was rereleased in Ireland last year. Most of the running time is about a dinner party. The opening of I am Love was similar and was full of meaningful body language, gestures and glances. Everything was set out about the family, who was were in the power struggles, what appearances had to be kept and the behaviour expected.

    What I really liked was how the feelings and mood that were front and centre in the movie. I've never experienced the sense of taste in a cinema like I did when she eats the prawns, it was amazingly shot. I loved how we saw Swinton's character going from being repressed and dominated by her status to living vicariously through her daughter's sexuality before grasping the nettle herself. The emotion and tension building up to the finale where we see how coldly and ruthlessly the family can treat those who no longer match the standards required making no excuse for circumstances.

    I was transfixed from start to finish, it was one of the most gorgeous films I've ever seen. Perhaps, it's because "a vanity project for la Swinton" is something that I'm eager to watch that meant that I went with the pomposity and over-the-topness of the movie. I can see how people could have the reaction you did to it. As it happens in the May issue of Sight & Sound they have a feature on Italian films were I am Love is reviewed in-depth very flatteringly whereas in the normal monthly reviews in the back the reviewer takes it apart completely. Seems very much a love or hate type film.

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      #3
      Disappointed

      I love art house movies and am a massive fan of "The Dead". I also thought that it referenced Scorsese's "Age of Innocence" with the lingering shots over sumptuous meals and the strictures of society/family. Don't get me wrong. I thought "I Am Love" was exqisitely shot and quite beautiful to look at.

      However, the story, for all its operatic qualities was cliched and the telling of it hackneyed. Quivering flowers and buzzing bees as they shag for the first time? Puuuhleease. And as for the bit where where she eats that prawn, all I can say is that I actually guffawed out loud in the cinema.

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