Due di Luca

Movies: I Am Love, A Bigger Splash

We're all obscene. Everyone's obscene. That's the whole fucking point. We see it and we love each other anyway. 

--"A Bigger Splash"


After watching the rapturous, sumptuous Call Me By Your Name about four times, I figured it was time to watch director Luca Guadagnino's earlier films: 2009's I Am Love and 2015's A Bigger Splash. While CMBYN is, in my opinion, the best of these three films (which Guadagnino considers to be a loose trilogy based around the concept of desire), I was not at all disappointed by the other two. They are both gorgeous, albeit very different in tone.

I Am Love has been described by Guadagnino as a "tragedy" and the critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes says that the film "stumbles into melodrama". Indeed, it's a very "showy" film. The cinematography is saturated with color and the score is loud and dramatic, to the point where as if it's trying to crush you with music.

I Am Love follows the Recchi family--an incredibly wealthy clan living in Milan. Having made his fortune through creating a textile business, Edoardo Recchi Sr. passes the company to his son, Tancredi and grandson, Edoardo Jr. Edo Jr., meanwhile, wants to open a restaurant with his friend, Antonio, a chef. Antonio keeps popping up around the Recchi family, gaining the attention of Emma Recchi (Tilda Swinton), Tancredi's wife and Edo's mother. The two begin a passionate affair that leads to unforeseen consequences which affect the entire family. Roger Ebert wrote that I Am Love is less about class/wealth and more about the battle between "old and new...tradition and feeling". The audience sees that Emma's incredible wealth comes at a price: a lack of love in her marriage. It's a tale as old as time, the ol' golden handcuffs dilemma.

Like Call Me By Your Name, the plot of I Am Love isn't particularly complicated and the film spends time lingering on the small gestures that make up our daily lives, as well as food motifs (if peaches were to sex in CMBYN, then the Russian, fish-based soup ukha is to family in IAL). In fact, given Antonio's profession, food and sexual ecstasy are one in the same in I Am Love.

Though a few scenes feel a bit "film school 101" (in particular, a scene where Antonio and Emma make love outdoors and their grappling and thrusting is intercut with images of insects pollinating flowers--eye roll), I Am Love is excellent. It's beautiful, it's intense, and Tilda Swinton gives a great performance as a Lady Chatterley-esque woman who suddenly wants more out of life, no matter the cost.

Grade: B+

In contrast, Guadagnino has described A Bigger Splash as a "farce", and indeed the film is funnier and looser than both I Am Love and Call Me By Your Name and filled with surprises and human foibles.

Tilda Swinton plays Marianne Lane, a world famous rockstar who is on vacation in Italy, recovering from throat surgery and on strict orders not to talk. Her boyfriend, Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts), is with her. After a suicide attempt, he is in recovery for alcoholism. Let's just say the two desperately need a break from the demands of the real world.

But things fall apart when Marianne's ex, Harry Hawkes (Ralph Fiennes in an unforgettable and hilarious role), shows up with his estranged daughter, Penelope (Dakota Johnson). Fiennes plays Harry with a sort of crazed joie de vivre. It's as if he has cocaine instead of blood pumping through his veins. He's also oblivious to the opinions and needs of others: he fills up the empty fridge at Marianne and Paul's villa with about 30 bottles of wine, despite knowing Paul is in recovery. He sings a romantic duet with Penelope at a karaoke bar, not getting that it looks to outsiders like he's schtupping his daughter.

Ralph Fiennes is, hands down, the best part of A Bigger Splash. He's outrageous, but insightful. The quote at the top of this review is from his character.

Drama builds as Harry flirts with Marianne and Penelope makes a pass at Paul, and without revealing too much I'll say that the film takes a pretty surprising turn about 2/3 of the way through. I have to admit that I enjoyed the first half of A Bigger Splash immensely, but got a little restless in the second half and by the end the film, it didn't really hold my attention. But that could have been my state of mind more than the film itself.

Unique, funny, sexy, and surprising, A Bigger Splash is solid, if not reaching the heights of Call Me By Your Name.

Grade: B+

The three films actually balance each other well: I Am Love is sad, not funny in the least, beautiful, and distant. A Bigger Splash is funny, warm, goofy, and--though not without tragedy--not as much of a downer. Call Me By Your Name takes the best of both films: it's warm, intimate and emotionally accessible; sad, but not melodramatic; funny in parts but not a comedy; and beautiful but in a sensual, naturalistic way (as opposed to a performative **artistic** way). It seems to me after watching these three films that Guadagnino is a naturally gifted artist who has been honing his craft and getting better and better. His next movie, slated to be released this year, is a remake of Dario Argento's horror film Suspiria, and I couldn't be more excited to see it--as well as whatever he does next.