Arnon Grunberg

Punishment

Strangers

A friend told me that she thought that Luca Guadagnino’s movie “I am love” was the best movie she had seen this year.
It’s not a bad movie at all, but I was not as enthusiastic as my friend.
“I am love” (the title borders on tackiness, but so does the first half of the movie) is based on a few premises:

  • The unfaithful woman should be punished severely. For the audience this is half of the joy of her unfaithfulness and perhaps in a twisted way this is half of the joy for the unfaithful woman as well.
  • Love goes through the stomach, not only for men also for women.
  • Sexual attraction is the extension of class warfare.
  • The haute bourgeoisie doesn’t accept strangers.
  • Some women like to exchange recipes while making love.
  • The servants serve the food and when all is said and done they will love you more than your own family.

The movie is worth seeing, especially because of the last twenty minutes.

And it confirmed something a friend told me over lunch: if you want to pick up a woman on the New York subway start reading a cookbook. To avoid misunderstandings: the movie isn’t set in New York, but food plays an important role in "I am love".