I have had two vodkas, no food and to be totally transparent, a few cigarettes. It’s Midnight and I am just back from the NY Premiere of “I am Love” by Luca Guadagnino with Tilda Swinton.

To say that I was in shock coming out of the theater is an understatement. I could barely stand up and had to ask someone to hold me because my entire body was shaking after the roller coaster ride of emotions I went through in the past 2 and 1/2 hours. And I wasn’t the only one; every single soul that came out of the movie was startled.

But this is not a movie, this was Cinema. A milestone. The work of a genius and perhaps the only movie one needs to see in their lifetime because  after this one, any other movie will feel ~how can I say ~ irrelevant, unfinished or old school.

I fell in Love with the director (and I told him), yet again with Tilda Swinton (and I told her too) and with women in general for their ability to start a revolution because of LOVE. The raw power they extract from their entrails (guts if you prefer) to overcome a conformist (albeit painfully beautiful and dignified) environment is “a transgression from within” says the Director.

This is a subversive movie and talking to one of the producers, Emma is still very much perceived as a  controversial character to the Italian critics.

But Tilda Swinton calls it a conceptual movie about “limitlessness. About the freedom to be whatever you wish to be or however you feel you are”. “I just like opening windows” she adds …. Tilda, don’t be such a wallflower, what you just did with I am Love is breaking down walls!

This is the fruit of an 11 year collaboration between the Director and the actress and a 5 year labor of love to bring the movie to life . He was quoted saying in today’s New York Times: “I am at home with her.” She calls the scene where her character dines on glazed prawns, as a particular showstopper: “prawn-ography.”

I encourage you to see it. Strike that I command you to see it!

I don’t know in which way you will be affected by it but you will. And please let me know if it was the music (many people referred to it as an Opera or a Symphony at the after-party ~hence the vodka), the photography, the eroticism, the emotions, the sensuality, the costumes, the tempo, the characters, the story…

I keep asking myself which favorite scene of the movie I could share with you?

I haven’t had time to digest the movie so I will sleep on that one and write about it tomorrow. In the meantime, there is this moment when Antonio undresses Emma to make love to her that comes to mind. He carefully strips her from every piece of clothing, shoes and jewelry as if he wanted her only to himself or couldn’t bear the sight of anything between them. The way he takes of her rings from her fingers…

I’ll sleep on that.