Touches You

Captivating movie !

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is a story about the tug of war between those that hold onto tradition and those who crave to be progressive. It is also a study of class and gender, and the irrepressible love which bleeds through and blurs the boundaries. This is a movie of few words, the story of which is told through fleeting glances, a blank stare, and the dizzying sequences of close-ups that mimic the movement of one's own eyes searching desperately for the one face it craves to see. It was the remarkable cinematography of Yorick Le Saux. The score by John Adams was also memorable, often perfectly complementing the protagonists' blissful free fall from grace, the tempo matching with the ever increasing heart rate of the viewer. It was a jaw-dropping experience.

The Recchis are an Italian family based in Milan that is quite wealthy from Edoardo Sr's investments in the textile industry. Edoardo's son Tancredi married Emma, who was visiting Italy from Russia. Emma embraced Italian culture and reared Tancredi's son Edoardo Jr (Edo). Edo was a race car driver, and was also interested in starting a restaurant with his long time friend Antonio.As the film progresses, Emma organises dinners for important guests. Edo and Antonio move forward with the restaurant. Edo takes more control of the family business. The family decides to sell the business; this will make them even richer.Emma sees that she is attracted to Antonio; her marriage to Tancredi is depicted as cold from start to finish. Elisabetta (Emma's daughter, Edo's sister) tells Emma that she prefers women to men; this ends up having zero dramatic impact.So...will the sale of the textile plants go as planned to the group from India? Will Antonio and Edo get the restaurant going well? Will Emma's affair with Antonio torpedo everything? -----Scores-----Cinematography: 10/10 Gorgeous, well-executed.Sound: 7/10 OK, I suppose. It did not seem to be a factor in the film. Much of the film is next to silent: footfalls, doors closing, other incidental sounds.Acting: 5/10 Most of the actors have talent, but I did not see much of that talent shine; the performances were dull, listless, uninteresting.Screenplay: 6/10 Long and slow with reasonable character development. Not much of a story was told, with zero characters that I cared about. The ending certainly reinforced that strongly.

A huge, artsy,  elegant Italian extravaganza of a film featuring immaculate, expensively stylish clothing, a big rich family and the 'power of love'.  In a nutshell, the mother falls in love with one of her son's friends, they meet secretly and have lots of sex with frenetic insects and windblown flowers waving about in the background.  Son figures out his mother is having an affair, they have a tiff, she follows him outside and he falls in the swimming pool and dies.  Family distraught; big funeral; wife tells hubby she's in love with Antonio, hubby says 'you no longer exist'.  They go home, wife packs a bag (or rather, maid packs it for her) and she leaves, but not without giving a meaningful look to her lesbian daughter - the only one who 'understands' true love?  The end.  Very enjoyable to watch what with all the gorgeous clothes and Italian scenery but a disappointingly unclear ending.  What happened?  Does she set up house with lover boy?  Do they live happily every after? Was the moral simply 'find true love and bugger your family'?   Arrg!   I must know more!

The ever-versatile Tilda Swinton stars as a Russian-born Italian in Luca Guadagnino's film 'I am Love', which is beautifully filmed, well-observed and acted with a nice sense of understatement. Yet this tale of a wealthy family suffers somewhat from the basic irrelevance of its drama. Being happy is a challenge for everyone, even for the rich, but a story where the characters are essentially free to choose their own lives can feel slight, and although part of the point here is that the individuals concerned are prisoners of their own privilege, the point is made without any satirical venom - the tears of the servant, crying over the departure of her mistress at the end of the film, are shown without irony. Although there are details to enjoy here, I found it hard to sympathise with any of the characters over any of the others. It's not a bad film, but a social dimension to match its emotional one might have added to its impact.