Is it hard to describe the experience of watching the film?How hard is it to put into words all the emotions that this film has revived me?And I say revive because? Call me by name?It’s more than a movie, it’s a dialogue with our inner teenager, with ourselves. It’s an experience, a nostalgic reminder of those idyllic summers that seemed endless. It’s a declaration of love for human nature, life. , simplicity, our bodies, our experiences, our desire and our first love?
“Call Me by Your Name”, directed by Luca Guadagnino and starring Thimoté Chalamet and Armie Hammer, is one of the most-expected films of the year, debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and went through several festivals until reaching the Oscar. with 4 nominations under his arm. The film won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
- The story presented to us by Guadagnino makes us forget the gay theme of the film.
- And takes it to a more intimate and personal plane.
- So that we can make this summer love story our own story.
- Your name?” It’s not a melodrama.
- It’s not a freshwater movie.
- It is a natural.
- Beautiful and emotional film in its purest form.
In an increasingly dehumanized world, where human relationships are increasingly marked by the presence of a canvas, in which books are nothing more than a strange forgotten and dusty setting on the shelves, where cinema only serves to impress us with expensive and incredible special effects. , in a world of zombies that make long queues to consume, in a cold and unprotected world of feeling, humanity and self-criticism, this film is a relief.
In the midst of all this comes “Call me by your name”, which comes as a bucket of cold water, but also very nice, that takes us out of this coma, from this artificial paradise in which we live. which makes us human.
Elio is a young teenager from an American, Italian, French and Jewish family. Summers usually mean a trip with their parents to an idyllic house in northern Italy, not far from Lake Garda. His father is a professor of archaeology at the university and every year he invites one of his graduate students on vacation. This year the family will receive Oliver, a Jewish and American student. Elio and Oliver will develop a special bond, both going through an intense summer during which they will discover aspects of themselves until now unknown.
Elio is in a phase of complete sexual awakening, of discovery of his own body. The story is tell from Elio’s point of view, as if we were living his own life. Elio is a different young man, who grew up in a multicultural context. His parents are high-level educational people, and they have always taken refuge in books and music, for which he has a particular talent. He’s introverted and intelligent, he seems to know everything but feelings.
Do you call me by name?is it natural and sincere, invites us to relive our own memories, to recognize ourselves as Elio already wish Oliver as much as he does. This desire is described without shame, without artifice; there is no reason to describe it in a beautiful way, you have to show it as it really is, this magic of the first kisses, in which Elio does not know very well what to do with the mouth, the most intimate scenes, in the Elio, without having to articulate words, transmits a whole series of sensations to which one immediately identifies.
The film is not just a love story, it is an unreleased description of the desire, of this first call to sexuality, of this discovery of the body that makes the person never again a child.
In Elio’s case, this desire will be confused between young Marzia and Oliver, but finally, with Oliver, this desire becomes something else, something that had not yet happened to Marzia. The homosexual issue goes almost unnoticed, although it is a central theme. The naturalness with which the film moves makes us almost unconscious, so it becomes absolutely normal, because there is nothing artificial about representation, it is natural as in everyday life.
Does the burden of sensations make us think of our own experiences, remember something or someone, a feeling, a smell, a taste?The viewer ceases to be a spectator, becomes an actor in Elio’s experience. You can almost touch, feel, and get into the movie.
Call me by name, transform the viewer’s usual passivity, dragging it completely into a story where nothing exceptional really happens. A story in which there are no plots, but they are not necessary either. Elio is part of us, like a mirror in which we can look and see our own youth.
The union of the bucolic atmosphere of northern Italy and the magic of summer to adolescence marks this love story. Those summers where nothing worried us, when it seemed like time had stopped for a long time. Call me by name? It takes us to these summers, to the climate and gives the impression that there is nothing in the world but the village and its surroundings.
Guadagnino wanted to tell a story, somewhere and at some point, and surely it is very successful, it makes us forget that there is a world that surrounds us during the two hours of film, reminiscent of the delicious summers, those where we made new friends or old acquaintances, where the magic of the first love happened, or news such as smoking your first cigarette or going out for the first time to dance at night.
Every moment of Elio’s summer feels like it’s ours, but at the same time we know that every summer has its end, so the love stories that arise during this period usually have an expiration date, this validity combined with chance. , is what makes summer such a magical moment, can the film transmit it in such a way that we almost feel the sun, the smells, the coffee, the taste of the melons, the magic of the holidays, the water of the river??
If Elio had kept quiet about his feelings, had he not listened to his wishes, the story would not have been the same. Talk or die? The question is a constant in the film, but Elio will not be in doubt, and even if he says little, he breaks the silence. Many times we silence our feelings, we hide our identity for some reason. Call me for yours?, the name reminds us of the most human side that we often suppress, invites us to talk about our feelings.
Set in 1983, when we still didn’t know what the Internet was, while the books still had power, the film saves nostalgia, presents clothes to cars, we’re making a trip back in time, the summers we live in and think it would be the best time of our lives Elio is going through all this, but he still doesn’t know how important it is.
Just say it, because less is more, is that what you’re doing?You call me by name? It is a film that manages to draw the invisible, say what is not put into words, and yet without tangles or metaphors, recovering the more human side of our species. More than a movie, it’s an experience.
“Call me by name and I’ll call you by mine” – Call me by name-