• Rating:
Milan, an era not perfectly defined but certainly modern, current, yet tinged with those typical '60s nuances dear to Visconti, enough to both confuse and fascinate us at the same time.
A family, the Recchi family, well-off, wealthy, powerful, with a status evident from the very first shots of their home, a villa built in the '30s in the heart of Milan, a stronghold of a patriarchal hierarchy owing all its fame and economic and social power to the grandfather, who founded the flourishing textile industry.
The film gently introduces us to their lives, as obvious external observers, almost spying on the extremely curated and pretentious birthday party in honor of the patriarch (Gabriele Ferzetti), an old and sick man who, despite his illness and advanced age, takes advantage of this gathering occasion to announce his decision to hand over the company to his son and eldest grandson Edoardo (the excellent Flavio Parenti), not avoiding doing so with a polemical touch ("It takes two Recchi men to continue the work started by just one").
Thus, from the very beginning, we realize the dynamics that hold family relationships together, the extent of hypocrisy and servitude among its members, and the need for control. In this background, we immediately notice the strong figures of the paternal grandparents (the patriarch and his equally tough and snobbish wife); their son Tancredi (Pippo Delbono) lacking charisma and thus not particularly regarded by his father; the two sons, one younger and ambitious, and the elder, Edoardo, who will inherit part of the company, delicate and conservative; the daughter (Alba Rohrwacher), fragile and crushed by the burden of the Name, who will flee abroad to find herself and an unconventional love; and finally, only last, we notice Emma (Tilda Swinton) the wife from Russia, who has long forgotten all her heritage, who behind a facade of cold detachment, expressed through a meticulous attention to detail (impeccable clothing, regal bearing, an attitude of perpetual courteous kindness, withheld vitality) hides in reality, even from herself, a passionate and absolutely vital temperament, which will break the clichés and deeply entrenched habits of the family core she knows she never truly belonged to. And she will do so through an unexpected encounter that will totally liberate her, sweep her away, make her reborn, and heal her from the lack of meaning and protagonism that kept her confined in the family fortress for decades.
Obviously, everything comes at a price, especially newfound happiness, and Luca Guadagnino is not immune to the allure of the now-famous Eros and Thanatos duality so dear to the classics. Thus, we viewers are unconsciously swept away by events passing through the sublime photographic images of love and sex under the sun (the beautiful Swinton and Edoardo Gabbriellini), into the deep, breathless darkness of the last ten raw, intense, and realistic minutes of the film, nonetheless of breathtaking beauty, thanks to the splendid score by John Adams and the performance of Maria Paiato, always a background character, who plays Ida, the trusted housekeeper and impotent but extremely present spectator in the unfolding of family events.
You are left dumbfounded by so much beauty in Guadagnino's representation.
Dumbfounded and still thirsty, unsatisfied despite the relentless roll of the end credits.
Absolutely a film to see.
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