Call Me By Your Name(2017) : You Only Live Once
Goes without saying, spoilers and personal opinions follow
A long Italian summer in 1980s is probably what can be the perfect setting for a coming-of-age love story like Call Me By Your Name.The silent streets of Lombardy filled with the sounds of chirping birds makes it only more sumptuous. Oliver( Armie Hammer) is a Jewish American student who visits Italy for the summer to help his archaeology professor with some paperwork . Elio ( Timothee Chalamet) is the host’s son, a 17 year old talented musician who spends his time reading books and composing variations to Bach’s timeless pieces featuring an all time favourite Postillion’s Aria . This composition is so cleverly and intently placed for two reasons. The first being the story behind the song itself , which was composed by Bach as a farewell to a departing friend when he was only seventeen years old, the same age as Elio. The second is the way the scene is written. Despite Oliver’s repeated request to play the original , Elio teases him with this passive aggressive foreplay by playing alternate versions , emoting dramatically. And just when Oliver is about to leave, he reveals his true feeling , playing the original softer version . This for me , becomes the crux of the film , and defines the theme of their love.
Even though Elio has very little in common with Oliver , there is always a sensual tension lingering around. They start spending time with each other , swimming , going on long walks together and not to forget, hanging out with their own girlfriends. The film is constantly teasing the audience , taking its own pace to reveal the characters(rightly so, what do people ever do in summers?) . While Elio and Oliver are slowly peeling each others’ layers , they finally express their feelings an hour into the movie and decide to keep it a secret. What follows is a see-saw kind of flirtatious summer affair where Elio seemingly loses hold of the reality and falls deeply , truly and madly in love with Oliver. Their parents get a hint of this romance and suggest them to take a trip to Bergamo before Oliver leaves for America. As Oliver leaves town , Elio finds himself heartbroken, depicted in a crushing scene where he calls his mother to pick him up from the train station. He finds a friend in Maria (who herself is in love with Elio) , and empathises with his Dad , who astonishingly reveals that he could not gather the courage back in his day to admit that he was also gay.
Timothée Chalamet’s performance as Elio is brilliant. Playing a musical prodigy , constantly trying to one-up his partner and simultaneously trying to play hard-to-get got me grinning like an envious commoner. I was truly charmed and overwhelmed by Timothee’s performance , what can only be described as bold for a 22 year old actor. He received a deserving Oscar nomination , and lost to a close race against Gary Oldman.
Armie Hammer is playing his third gay role( after J Edgar and Final Potrait). Although this role must have been trickier and riskier romancing a ten year younger guy. As he explains in this interview , he describes his challenge to potray the confusion in his character in the scene where Elio and Oliver have sex for the first time. Playing a tall , handsome and confident American ; he takes no time in establishing his prowess by correcting his professor’s remark on the origin of the word ‘apricot’ . Hammer rarely makes a mistake, imbibing the politeness and the occasional snubby( is that a word? ) ’ — Later’ remark at the same time.
All the other characters are well placed , but I will take a couple of sentences to describe Michael Stuhlbarg’s Greco-Roman professor/father. He is content letting his family figuring things out on their own , but at the same time is a guiding hand when things get a little tougher for his son. His monologue at the end of the movie is probably the most surprising ones I’ve seen in a lot of time.
I am all praise for Luca Guadagnino , for making me swoon along with the characters. He just gets how people feel. The lazy summers, the vibrant visuals , the raw energy in the characters , is just so well placed. Everything seems to be in slow motion . There is always a constant suspense and thrill at the beginning and end of every scene. While the characters leisurely discuss art and politics in whichever language feels right, going for long bike rides, taking impromptu dips in the lakes , and dining outdoors under the lush peach trees , Guadagnino languidly potrays the sensuality through his lens. One thing to take way from his style of directing is that he can create a character out of the surrounding world better than anyone else. The use of contemporary piano music definitely complements the movie. This is probably the most perfectly calibrated movie of 2017.
James Ivory has adopted the script in a very gentle manner. He has built up a lot of tension, evidently as the characters are only together for a short time. Even though Elio from the book is a lot older, the script brings in a raw kind of energy into the picture which just makes it so much more thrilling to watch. The most resonant part of Call Me By Your Name may not even be the romance itself, but rather the constant lingering sensuality that it can’t last, which is evoked through teasing long takes and expert use of silence. Call me by your name is truly a triumph for love, thanks to its lead characters. This is a movie to which almost anyone can relate and I have a feeling this movie will be remembered for a long, long time.
