This is a wonderful Italian film that is lush, sensual, beautiful, and operatic in tone. It has grand scale and little moments. It stars beautiful Tilda Swinton as Emma, dressed in Jill Sander couture with Hermes and Fendi bags.
She is a Russian woman married into the rich Italian Rechhi industrial family. She has two grown children, Eduardo and Betta. They all live in a grand villa, surrounded by gates with doormen, maids, footmen, and a housekeeper. Everything is so quiet, so lush, so graceful, so perfect, so in its place. She is the perfect mother, wife, housekeeper, the perfect embodiment of a rich Italian's wife. She knows and accepts the demands of the role of the fabric magnate's wife, and as the daughter-in-law to the elder Recchi patriarch and matriarch. She is smiling, gracious, beautiful and very taut and controlled without being cold.
But she does not have a real grasp on who she is. When asked how she came to Italy, she says that her father was an art restorer and her husband was visiting them and began dating her. When they married, he brought her to Italy, changed her name to Emma, and she took on her new persona. She cannot recall her Russian name; knows only that she was nicknamed Kitesh. (She's not suffering from amnesia.) She looks to others for their reactions to events as if to gage her reaction. She gazes carefully around her as if not a part of the gathering but apart from it.
She meets a friend of her son's, a young chef named Antonio and eats one day at his restaurant. Suddenly, emotions are awakened that may have been suppressed. She's drawn to the young chef. They have an affair. She changes her behavior, cuts her hair, cooks with him, spends time away with him at his remote mountain home, and shares a Russian recipe that she cooks for her son. When Eduardo discovers that Antonio is cooking his mother's recipe, he jumps to the ultimate conclusion which she does not deny. But the argument that follows leads to tragedy and the family's undoing. She tells her husband "You no longer know who I am" and flees when the affair is discovered as her husband has told her "You do not exist." And he may be right. She may not know herself well enough to exist on her own terms, only on those given to her by a man. How he defines her is how she defines herself. At the end of the film, two arguments can be made: she is either a woman suppressed, whose awakening came when she devoured the food and the young chef. Or, she is a woman who is a blank canvas, one of those women who change with each man they are with. She let her husband rename her; she took the Italian family traditions; she looks to her mother in law and father in law for approval; she has no opinions of her own; she is a dutiful wife, mother, daughter-in-law, etc. And then, with the young chef, she shares his love of food, of the remote mountain retreat; she lets him cut her hair; she dresses more casually; she will give up everything to be with him. She may be in love but she may have also taken on yet another persona.
The most intriguing part is Tilda Swinton, who is such a chameleon in all of her films. She embodies a part like no one can, acting as blank canvas, painting the character in subtle details. She is fearless in this role. She should be nominated and should win an Oscar and other awards. You have to watch her, those eyes, that mouth and jaw, the slight emotional changes that flit across her face and her reactions to events. Amazing.
She is a Russian woman married into the rich Italian Rechhi industrial family. She has two grown children, Eduardo and Betta. They all live in a grand villa, surrounded by gates with doormen, maids, footmen, and a housekeeper. Everything is so quiet, so lush, so graceful, so perfect, so in its place. She is the perfect mother, wife, housekeeper, the perfect embodiment of a rich Italian's wife. She knows and accepts the demands of the role of the fabric magnate's wife, and as the daughter-in-law to the elder Recchi patriarch and matriarch. She is smiling, gracious, beautiful and very taut and controlled without being cold.
But she does not have a real grasp on who she is. When asked how she came to Italy, she says that her father was an art restorer and her husband was visiting them and began dating her. When they married, he brought her to Italy, changed her name to Emma, and she took on her new persona. She cannot recall her Russian name; knows only that she was nicknamed Kitesh. (She's not suffering from amnesia.) She looks to others for their reactions to events as if to gage her reaction. She gazes carefully around her as if not a part of the gathering but apart from it.
She meets a friend of her son's, a young chef named Antonio and eats one day at his restaurant. Suddenly, emotions are awakened that may have been suppressed. She's drawn to the young chef. They have an affair. She changes her behavior, cuts her hair, cooks with him, spends time away with him at his remote mountain home, and shares a Russian recipe that she cooks for her son. When Eduardo discovers that Antonio is cooking his mother's recipe, he jumps to the ultimate conclusion which she does not deny. But the argument that follows leads to tragedy and the family's undoing. She tells her husband "You no longer know who I am" and flees when the affair is discovered as her husband has told her "You do not exist." And he may be right. She may not know herself well enough to exist on her own terms, only on those given to her by a man. How he defines her is how she defines herself. At the end of the film, two arguments can be made: she is either a woman suppressed, whose awakening came when she devoured the food and the young chef. Or, she is a woman who is a blank canvas, one of those women who change with each man they are with. She let her husband rename her; she took the Italian family traditions; she looks to her mother in law and father in law for approval; she has no opinions of her own; she is a dutiful wife, mother, daughter-in-law, etc. And then, with the young chef, she shares his love of food, of the remote mountain retreat; she lets him cut her hair; she dresses more casually; she will give up everything to be with him. She may be in love but she may have also taken on yet another persona.
The most intriguing part is Tilda Swinton, who is such a chameleon in all of her films. She embodies a part like no one can, acting as blank canvas, painting the character in subtle details. She is fearless in this role. She should be nominated and should win an Oscar and other awards. You have to watch her, those eyes, that mouth and jaw, the slight emotional changes that flit across her face and her reactions to events. Amazing.