Call me by your name (2017)

Summer of 1983, Northern Italy. Seventeen year-old Elio lives with his family in their summer house, when Oliver, his father’s research assistant arrives. Oliver will stay with them for the whole summer to work with Elio’s dad on Greek-Roman art sculptures. Elio will soon be intrigued by this new guest, whose magnetic presence will ignite something inside Elio, something new and undiscovered.

The new film by Luca Guadagnino is the big surprise of this year’s award season. With 4 Oscar nominations {Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song)}, and already more than 40 other wins (including the recent Golden Globes), Call me by your name is a breathtaking love story between two young men set in the 80s. Written by James Ivory and Luca Guadagnino, the film is based on the 2007 novel by André Aciman and it is the final installment in Guadagnino’s thematic Desire trilogy, following I Am Love (2009) and A Bigger Splash (2015).

 

 

The story simple: Elio volunteers to show Oliver around the area. The two of them will develop a friendship that will ultimately expose their deep desire for each other. Elio is fascinated and at the same time irritated by Oliver’s infatuating personality. Oliver is intelligent, handsome and absolutely captivating; he flirts with women and knows how to enjoy life, while Elio is young, shy and inexperienced. Through the explorations of their surroundings, they also explore their own sexuality and consequently their own identity. What we witness on screen is a marvelous portrait of love and desire that unlocks new and wonderful possibilities. Elio and Oliver fall madly in love, while Elio discovers his sexuality and his own self through Oliver. What they have is effortless and natural; it is real.

Guadagnino has managed to create a film that looks effortless. The natural way with which everything flows is one of the film’s best qualities. The entirety of the shots are flawless: he uses intense close-ups to demonstrate Elio’s emotional state, while he foregrounds the relationship’s course and Elio’s sexual journey. The erotic atmosphere of the film is smooth and comes out naturally due to the impeccable chemistry of the two actors. Chalamet has righteously won all those awards, while he flirts with his first Oscar this year. His performance as the frustrated Elio who explores his sexuality through his relationship with Oliver is amazing. His body language conveys the impatience and desire of a young man and it expresses his character’s inner world with such an integrity that his performance becomes almost pure.

The Italian landscape and the carelessness of the summer create an environment that allows the audience to discover without haste the relationship of Elio and Oliver. When swimming and laying under the sun become priorities, then somehow the process of realizing yourself and your needs is unveiled. The amazing score is also contributing to experience the film as effortlessly and naturally as possible, since the music’s soft and restless notes reveal a romanticism that is comparable to Shakespearean love.

This film is a landmark of love, and particularly gay love; one that is unique, deep and universal. Elio and Oliver’s story is one that doesn’t happen every day. At one of the last scenes of the film, Elio’s father is openly talking to his son about love and desire; he talks with honesty and compassion about all those things every young person wants to hear from their parent. Truthful and inspiring words that place the film on a cinematic pedestal, one that is carved with beautiful and exquisite Greek-Roman details.

This is the type of film that leaves its mark on the viewer; it is the type of film which is above all an experience. You witness step by step the development of those characters and their relationship, you feel them, and along with them, you discover parts in yourself you didn’t know exist. Parts that talk about deep love and are authentic. Call me by your name is an intense portrait of love; a love that has the power to change, transform and shape one’s life. Elio and Oliver meet in Northern Italy only to discover that by loving each other, they ultimately learn to love and appreciate who they really are. And that is priceless.

(Photos taken from the web.)