The new film by Luca Guadagnino has been well received by the film critics. A press screening of the film was held in London last week, only a few days before the Premiere, and the film is in the UK cinemas now.
Portraying the life of a wealthy Milanese family, ‘I am love’ is a film about passions and repressions. The Recchis live in an Art Deco villa in Milan, and are more than your average rich, unhappy stereotypes. They are powerful, formal, and manipulative, and their lives seem to be an endless theatrical piece.
The family consists of the grandparents, played by Gabriele Ferzetti and Marisa Berenson, Emma and her husband Tancredi (Tilda Swinton and Pippo Delbono) and their children Edoardo Jr. (Flavio Parenti), Betta (Alba Rohrwacher) and Gianluca (Mattia Zàccaro). Like most Italian families, the Recchi love parties and the lunches and dinners are an essential part of the story.
The table is laden with symbolisms; the starters are cold, well-presented, and unemotional, just like the communication between the family members. Over dimensional rooms and excessive luxury are used by the family to compensate for the lack of love. Formalities and superficialities are used to cover their individual and collective frustration and unhappiness. Tilda Swinton steals most of the scenes with her very intense and convincing performance, speaking Russian and Italian, making love with the chef, and even by preparing an ‘oucha’ soup.
Oucha Soup
For film lovers, ‘I am love’ recalls themes from Luchino Visconti and Michelangelo Antonioni’s films, and various aspects of the cinematography of Douglas Sirk, with a lovely little homage to the cinema of Hitchcock. For food lovers, the story starts to get ‘spicy’, when Emma eats the ‘Prawns and Ratatouille with sweet and sour sauce’.
Prawns and Ratatouille with sweet and sour sauce
Through the flavours, she falls madly in love with Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), a young talented chef, and friend of her son. The dishes used in the film were all created by chef Carlo Cracco from Ristorante Cracco in Milan. The delicious ‘insalada russa’, and the ‘Marinated Egg Yolk’, two of Cracco’s famous signature dishes can be seen in the film, followed by other dishes such as Aubergine and Elderflower, Leghorn-Style Cod, and Pea cream and courgette flowers.
Insalata Russa
Marinated Egg Yolk
The actor Edoardo Gabbriellini, spent a month with Cracco in the kitchen to learn some of his moves and basic techniques to be able to add an extra layer to his performance as a chef.
He had to learn how to use the knives, practice how to fillet a fish, and how to prepare some dishes in Cracco’s style.
Carlo Cracco
At the Sundance Film Festival, in a conversation between the cast and the crew of ‘I am love’, Carlo Cracco said:
“I tried to get into the characters to best understand what was inside them and what their aspirations were. I wondered: what do these people want? What moves them? Actually that is the same thing that I do every time a customer takes a seat in my restaurant. I try to understand his psychology and his spirit, to offer the dish and experience that he may crave at that very moment. Cooking is above all communication, because it is where the magic of interchange may take place that ties people together and unites them with this very fine and magical thread that is food. In some cases, it brings them closer.”
Film trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUXEAhJb_O0
RISTORANTE CRACCO
Via Victor Hugo, 4
Milan – Italy
Photos: LB and Press Images
Luciana Bianchi is chef de cuisine and food writer, works as European correspondent for the Brazilian gourmet magazine, Prazeres da Mesa, and contributes to several publications in Brazil and Europe.
www.prazeresdamesa.com.br on Twitter http://twitter.com/LucianaBianchi
Tags: Carlo Cracco, Chef Luciana Bianchi, film, Italy, Luciana Bianchi, Milan, Ristorante Cracco
Very good comments.
If the “oucha soup” is of Russian origin, I assume that it is prepared with river fish only as is the custom there.
Is it true and could we have a brief description of the recipe?
Many thanks for your message. Chef Carlo Cracco will be the best person to answer your question. He produced all the dishes for the film.
info@ristorantecracco.it
Many thanks for following the 50 Best blog and for your kind words!! Best!
[...] chef carlo, in an interview at the sundance film festival, explains, “I tried to get into the characters to best understand what was inside them and what their aspirations were. I wondered: what do these people want? What moves them? Actually that is the same thing that I do every time a customer takes a seat in my restaurant. I try to understand his psychology and his spirit, to offer the dish and experience that he may crave at that very moment. Cooking is above all communication, because it is where the magic of interchange may take place that ties people together and unites them with this very fine and magical thread that is food. In some cases, it brings them closer.” source [...]