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Call Me by My Italian Name
From ‘Call Me By Your Name’ (2017) to nuanced identities and complex relationships with personal history.
It starts with one thing… I don’t know why…
No, I mean, this piece starts with a question…can Call Me by Your Name be considered an Italian movie? Can I be called by my Italian name? See, Jess the Avocado, could easily be Jess L’ Avocado. I know, shocking difference.
But can a movie with no Italian main actors be considered Italian cinema?
Maybe yes, maybe no.
Or as a song goes:
Italia si, Italia no. La terra dei cachi.
I’m Australian, but I’m also Italian and in fact, I grew up in the “Persimmons’ Land” (Italia si, Italia no…).
The first thoughts, at least the beautiful ones, that come to mind when I try and remember the 90s in Italy are: the summer light over the old stones of houses, monuments, and countryside stone-walls; the mix of 90s and 80s euro music blasting on car radios; the sea, always the sea; people spraying way too much perfume (and I still love it); bity winter, buses, and wild veggies; my mother brushing my long and curly hair on summer nights with the window-door open and the breeze coming in from both the beach — around 3 km away — and the country road behind our house. More 80s music.
I’m sure there were a lot of less amusing events going on, like the constant gossiping on the town folk and the way they ridiculed people who were different, all of the dog caca in the middle of the streets, and so on. But honestly, the negative things I remember are just personal stuff; the world outside my house seemed nearly idyllic to my pre-teen eyes.
It was not, but so much was magic.
Then I grew up, and started noticing that the bad stuff was not only present in the 100 square meters of terracotta floored apartment in Via Ungaretti. In fact, a lot of bad things were sprinkles all around my town, and the rest of Italy. That is life everywhere, I concur, but there’s a certain cacca that is particularly cacca in Italy, at least if you grow up there.
