https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkJ5H_LnRTY
It always seems easier to fall in love in the summer, making the season an easy draw for filmmakers depicting a coming-of-age romance. When you are young the combination of intense heat, scant clothing, long nights and having nothing to do makes one extremely susceptible to lust… and even love. But very few depictions are as graceful and sumptuous as Call Me By Your Name, which even by this early stage has to be considered in next year’s Oscar race. Queer stories that do well in Hollywood are either excessively tragic or highly comic. Call Me By Your Name is neither; it is shot through with the reality of life itself, seeing same-sex romance in all of its glorious complexity.
The Structure Is Timeless
The story is very simple: an American named Oliver (Armie Hammer) comes to northern Italy during the summer of 1983. Elio (Timothée Chalamet) is instantly fascinated by his easy demeanour and handsome looks, yet fearful of his own desire. Things are complicated by the fact that as Oliver is studying under his father (Michael Stuhlbarg), they have to share a house together for six long weeks. The result is a kind of chess game as the two men try and draw each other out of their shell. Eric Rohmer, who always loved to depict beautiful people playing verbal games as a means of protracting the way they feel, would be proud of the result, a remarkably refreshing story that would feel more revolutionary if it didn’t already seem so timeless.
It Is Both Novelistic And Cinematic
From Call Me By Your Name, 2017
With the novelistic flair of an E.M Forster novel, Call Me By Your Name accrues every detail of falling for someone in a remarkably dense fashion; from glances to small touches, confusion to elation, fulfilment to emptiness. It is little surprise that James Ivory shares both a writing and a producing credit — his adaptations of Maurice and A Room With A View being some of the finest literary adaptations of all time. Yet it still speaks the language of cinema; with the subtle cinematography acting as a stylistic conduit for the characters’ emotions. From blocking to tracking to cutting, Luca Guadagnino’s restrained formalism is on a par with masters such as Bernardo Bertolucci and Jean Renoir. The result of all this is one of the most acute representations of homosexual desire in cinema.
It Avoids Usual Pitfalls Of Gay Cinema
Call Me By Your Name, 2017
It may lay itself open to charges of fantasy — there are no references to the political or economic situation in the 1980s — but this allows the film to focus primarily on the two players and the relationship that they have. Also gone, for the most part, is the requisite dramatic scene when his parents find out about Elio’s sexuality and disown him. Instead the film takes important detours away from LGBT movie cliché to help enrich its themes. Additionally, as in many gay films that hit the mainstream, there are no hardcore elements to the film. Yet I believe that this is its strength; being a coming-of-age tale, it would be no good if its rating meant that young gay boys or girls were denied from seeing it. They are the ones who should see it the most, to know that their emotions are just as important as everyone else.
The films bittersweet themes are wonderfully complemented by the use of music, with a delectable piano score, new songs by Sufjan Stevens and even “Love My Way” by The Psychedelic Furs. Additionally, the period detail and costume design of the 80s is completely on point. In fact, the whole production is so sumptuously done that I have never wanted to step inside the world of a movie more. Coming during this cold February in Berlin, Call Me By Your Name could warm even the hardest of hearts.
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