Luca Guadagnino with Tilda Swinton
“You dare yourself to make these childish fantasies real,” says Tilda Swinton, talking about her 20-year collaboration with Luca Guadagnino and their ambition to make an operatic film in the style of Visconti or Antonioni. “We egg each other on.”
They’ve egged each other on slowly but surely over the last 20 years and now, finally, we are able to see the fruits of their collaboration, I am Love.
There is no doubt that Luca and Tilda have a passion for cinema. There is a lot of love in this film. Listening to them talk about the creative process is inspiring. They really whet your appetite.
But I didn’t like the film. It is beautifully made. It is lovingly made. It is a very intelligent and a very sensual film. But it is boring.
I think it exemplifies the huge risks that every creative artist takes. You can have a great idea. You can have a great creative team. You can execute your idea with infinite care. You can bring to it passion and exquisite craftsmanship. But you can still fail to excite your audience.
It is the first of a series of collaborations, they claim, in which they will explore the unique language of cinema, and they have already secured the funding for the next in the series, which will be an homage to Michael Powell.
I don’t know much about Michael Powell but I will certainly change that over the next few months. If he inspired Tilda and Luca I think he must be some kind of god.
Joseph Grinton 