Call Me by Your Name is about an American
Italian boy named Elio, played by Timothee
Chalamet.
It’s 1983 and his family is living in Northern
Italy when an American named Oliver, played
by Armie Hammer, comes and stays with them
to intern with Elio’s father.
The first thing Ellio says when he sees Oliver,
is he looks confident.
And indeed Armie Hammer plays Oliver as brash,
and honest, and self-aware.
Oliver is 10 years older than Elio, and has
the bearing and confidence of a man who has
had the time to discover who he is.
And maybe that’s the thing that begins to
attract Elio to him, at least in the beginning,
is Elio seeing in Oliver many of the ways
that he wishes to be, an inevitable aspect
to adolescent love and self-discovery.
Both actors give nuanced performances.
It would be difficult to describe the plot
from there because this movie unfolds in an
unusual fashion.
Essentially there is a third character, and
that is the languishing Italian summer.
Long warm afternoons with the smells of grass
and the orchard wafting in through the many
open windows.
Swimming for the third time that day.
And the movie sometimes takes that same identiy.
Scenes don’t always have connective tissue
between them but instead lapse by like the
long minutes of a summer day with nothing
to do but savor the warmth.
The characters seem as unhurried as the day
does, and I think your ability to enjoy the
movie will be directly proportional to your
willingness to just be another guest in Elio’s
home, as you watch him work up the courage
to say how he feels to Oliver.
I found the whole experience beautifully soothing.
This is a movie (story) that doesn’t set
out in any particular narrative direction
but instead discovers itself as the characters
do, with every passing day.
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The wonderful emotional music by Sufjan (soof-yan)
Stevens gives the movie a sense that something
is happening for these characters that isn’t
yet totally expressed onscreen.
Though tangentially I started to wonder at
the wealth of Ellio’s family, as I watched
them all swimming away another afternoon or
laying out in the sunshine.
Don’t these people have jobs?
It occurred to me then how much the movie
is like a love letter to 19th century romanticism.
An artistic and intellectual movement of the
mostly wealthy that sprung up as a counter
to rationalism and the industrial revolution
- emphasizing emotion over reason and very
focused on the beauty of nature, often bodies
of water and waterfalls.
When Elio finally expresses himself to Oliver,
the scene occurs through the use of a onner,
in a shot that stretches out for minutes.
And even then Elio can’t succinctly state
how he feels outright.
In fact his meaning is communicated in the
words he can’t bring himself to say.
And there is as much told in the blocking
of the shot as anything else, as Elio and
Oliver speak from opposite sides of a fence.
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And then their dynamic switches.
Oliver is resistant and the movie roots Oliver’s
resistance in his religion - as he says after
kissing Ellio that this is where they must
stop since they haven’t done anything yet
to be ashamed of.
I think religion here, works as shorthand
for something I imagine is a far more complex
challenge for people in their position - but
if the movie had had to explain how sexually
progressive Italy was or was not in 1983 it
would have certainly bogged down the material.
Elio’s and Oliver’s story of first love
plays out in a familiar fashion, while never
feeling cliche.
First love is a fingerprint, something common
and familiar to all of us but specific and
unique to each of us.
And the movie never lets their journey take
a turn that would be out of bounds for either
of their characters.
As the movie went on, I found myself growing
more tense and I started wondering why.
Towards the end, Oliver and Ellio were wandering
an Italian alleyway at night, a little drunk
and finally letting some of their love be
seen in public.
They come upon a trio of people smoking and
dressed in dark clothing.
And I felt sure something bad was about to
happen.
That's when I understood.
Art can be powerful cultural activism, and
an inherent aspect to activism is showing
people ugly things that they had previously
looked away from.
And change is slow.
It occurred to me, that I had been waiting
the whole movie for events that have become
cliche to mainstream stories of same sex relationships.
A murder.
A sickness.
A monstrous parent.
An act of violence.
But Ellio’s journey of sexual self-discovery
is treated as healthy and normal.
Though it seemed like there might’ve been
a price to pay for normality.
The movie feels a bit desexed at certain important
moments, where the camera looks shyly out
the window while we here certain goings on.
Earlier it hadn’t looked away from hetero
sex.
But still, I think, paradoxically, the most
powerful activist aspect to Call Me By Your
Name is that there isn’t one.
The medium is the message.
This not a story written around a lesson.
Instead, the movie is a simple clear photograph
of two people, and a long Italian summer where
love is love.
