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Dec 11, 2014Nursebob rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Emma Recchi, the Russian wife of an obscenely rich Milanese businessman (Tilda Swinton, always electric) approaches middle age with a sense of disconnectedness; she’s never been an integral part of her husband’s world and she’s all but lost her Slavic roots. And then she meets her son’s friend Antonio, a young chef who dreams of one day opening his own restaurant. Immediately drawn to his rustic charms and simple lifestyle Emma at first resists her erotic yearnings but they eventually prove too much for her to bear resulting in a fall from grace that will shake her life to its very core… I must admit that halfway through Luca Guadagnino’s grandiose family drama I found myself wondering why someone would take such a pedestrian plot—frustrated housewife finds escape in the arms of a younger man—and dress it up with so much operatic gravity. And then I realized it actually is an opera in which the arias have been replaced by glorious emoting and eclectic camerawork. At first off-putting, Guadagnino’s theatrical presentation soon takes on a life of its own as John Adams’ majestic score bangs and crashes through a series of stagy tableaux: lovers tussle al fresco surrounded by wheat and butterflies; an untouched porcelain place setting speaks of tragedy; and rain washes over a grieving cemetery statue. The ornately appointed Recchi mansion, looking like a gilded mausoleum, underscores Emma’s isolation while Antonio’s humble home seems perpetually bathed in sunlight and songbirds—this and several other too obvious contrasts both amateurish and oddly sublime. Finally, a subplot involving a daughter’s search for personal liberation places this one squarely in the realm of feminist cinema…all the more reason to celebrate. Magnificently overdone in every way and sure to divide critics down the middle. I loved it!