A would-be critique of Capitalism that is really that of Mercantilism and its alleged social responsibilities. The central characters are having some difficulty relating to a changing world and their need to change within it if they are to survive financially. tradition, custom and sheer force-of-habit make it harder for the next generation as they try to uphold the family name in the face of Globalization and the development of the Third World.
The other aspect of this story focuses on love and the personal fulfillment that can ensue therefrom. Too many of the characters have married for money and envy those who decide - against what they think of as their family's wishes - to follow their hearts. Such emotional suppression leads to the emotional obsessions shown here which inevitably contributes to both the decline in the family's fortunes and its way of life. Whether this makes things better for the world's poor remains moot.
A beautifully-shot movie with visual nods to Antonioni and Hitchcock; containing solid characterization and only marred by being overly-oblique in the telling and the use of some melodramatic cliché – a problem that marred the similarly-themed and just as good Leaving. Thus not quite as good as The Leopard but just as worthwhile. It hardly needs stating that Tilda SWINTON is excellent - she always is.
Saturday 9 October 2010
I Am Love
(2009)
80%
Copyright © 2010 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
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Science:
Sleep of Reason:
The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.
(1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.
Humans & Aliens:
I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.
(circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.
Führerprinzip:
One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.
(1913-60), French-Algerian writer & philosopher. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt: New York: Vintage Books, (1984; page 182.)
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