Call me by your name (Film Review)
I finally got around to watching Call me by your Name, which I had wanted to ever since reading scriptwriter James Ivory's delightful interview.
It is indeed a beautiful movie, directed by Luca Guadagnino, a coming of age story with Timothée Chalamet playing seventeen years old Elio, our pov character, Armie Hammer playing Oliver (whose age is never mentioned on screen; googling tells me that it's 24 in the novel the movie is based on, which makes it obvious why they never say so in the film because while Armie Hammer looks fantastic, he does look older than that), and Michael Stuhlbarg as Elio's father Samuel Perlman, a professor specializing in the Greeks and Romans whose grad student Oliver is. The Perlmans are multilingual, effortlessly switching between English, Italian and French (and Elio's mother Annella throws in German in one scene as well), affectionate with each other both verbally and physically, and the movie avoids many a cliché: no one gets subjected to homophobic rants, let alone beatings, there is no villain working against the lovers, and despite the 1983 setting, AIDS is never mentioned. (In the interview, Ivory said he'd considered including it via a discussion between Elio's parents but ultimately the scene was abandoned, as it simply didn't add anything and wasn't necessary, since no one gets sick.) Both Elio and Oliver while in the dancing around each other stage when they're still trying to deduce how the other one feels flirt and get physical with two Girls, but this doesn't come across as "I don't want to be gay!" angst, but rather as hormones, trying to make the other one jealous, and in the case of Elio and Marzia, whom he has known for years, as actual affection, just not on the same scale. (I did feel sorry for Marzia, though, considering that once Oliver shows sexual interest she's booted back to platonic friend and is visibly confused and hurt.)
It's a leisurely, sensual movie making the most of its Italian setting, with the camera caressing a bronze antique statue once it's fished out of Lake Garda as much as it does landscapes, food and the bodies of our heroes, of which we see a lot. (Never complete nudity, though, and I'm with Ivory regarding feeling this is a bit coy.) Speaking of Lake Garda: if it weren't set the early 80s, I'd say the fact Elio, his Father and Oliver find a spot in Sirmione where they can wander among ruins and not bump into tourists on every step is the movie's most unrealistic aspect, because I've been there, and the birthplace of Catullus is as overcrowded as the rest of the lake, Beautiful though the area is. But maybe not yet in the early 80s.
Sidenote: As I know several people who are interested in movies with Jewish main characters that aren't about said main characters being Jewish in an issue movie kind of way (i.e. Holocaust movie, movie about antisemitism, etc.), but which nonetheless don't just nod at the characters' being Jewish with one line while ignoring it for the rest of the movie: this counts as one of them. Both the Perlmans and Oliver are Jews, that they are in different ways is one of the things Oliver and Elio talk about, and the movie while otherwise set during the summer ends with a wintery Hannukha scene.
This is also one story where a change of pov might have, if not destroyed the appeal then greatly reduced it. 17 to 24 (or however old movie!Oliver is supposed to be) is not THAT much of an age gap, but it's there, and so it was important to be in Elio's pov and know that while he's still figuring things out, he's not inexperienced or seduced, and into Oliver long before Oliver does anything unmistakably flirtatious. It's also a movie which doesn't apologize for its main characters loving books, being, as mentioned, multilingual, and discussing a scene written by Marguerite de Navarre in the same passionate way that Oliver upon hearing a song on the radio dances. It's a great fictional world to spend two hours in. Highly reccommended.
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1302910.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
It is indeed a beautiful movie, directed by Luca Guadagnino, a coming of age story with Timothée Chalamet playing seventeen years old Elio, our pov character, Armie Hammer playing Oliver (whose age is never mentioned on screen; googling tells me that it's 24 in the novel the movie is based on, which makes it obvious why they never say so in the film because while Armie Hammer looks fantastic, he does look older than that), and Michael Stuhlbarg as Elio's father Samuel Perlman, a professor specializing in the Greeks and Romans whose grad student Oliver is. The Perlmans are multilingual, effortlessly switching between English, Italian and French (and Elio's mother Annella throws in German in one scene as well), affectionate with each other both verbally and physically, and the movie avoids many a cliché: no one gets subjected to homophobic rants, let alone beatings, there is no villain working against the lovers, and despite the 1983 setting, AIDS is never mentioned. (In the interview, Ivory said he'd considered including it via a discussion between Elio's parents but ultimately the scene was abandoned, as it simply didn't add anything and wasn't necessary, since no one gets sick.) Both Elio and Oliver while in the dancing around each other stage when they're still trying to deduce how the other one feels flirt and get physical with two Girls, but this doesn't come across as "I don't want to be gay!" angst, but rather as hormones, trying to make the other one jealous, and in the case of Elio and Marzia, whom he has known for years, as actual affection, just not on the same scale. (I did feel sorry for Marzia, though, considering that once Oliver shows sexual interest she's booted back to platonic friend and is visibly confused and hurt.)
It's a leisurely, sensual movie making the most of its Italian setting, with the camera caressing a bronze antique statue once it's fished out of Lake Garda as much as it does landscapes, food and the bodies of our heroes, of which we see a lot. (Never complete nudity, though, and I'm with Ivory regarding feeling this is a bit coy.) Speaking of Lake Garda: if it weren't set the early 80s, I'd say the fact Elio, his Father and Oliver find a spot in Sirmione where they can wander among ruins and not bump into tourists on every step is the movie's most unrealistic aspect, because I've been there, and the birthplace of Catullus is as overcrowded as the rest of the lake, Beautiful though the area is. But maybe not yet in the early 80s.
Sidenote: As I know several people who are interested in movies with Jewish main characters that aren't about said main characters being Jewish in an issue movie kind of way (i.e. Holocaust movie, movie about antisemitism, etc.), but which nonetheless don't just nod at the characters' being Jewish with one line while ignoring it for the rest of the movie: this counts as one of them. Both the Perlmans and Oliver are Jews, that they are in different ways is one of the things Oliver and Elio talk about, and the movie while otherwise set during the summer ends with a wintery Hannukha scene.
This is also one story where a change of pov might have, if not destroyed the appeal then greatly reduced it. 17 to 24 (or however old movie!Oliver is supposed to be) is not THAT much of an age gap, but it's there, and so it was important to be in Elio's pov and know that while he's still figuring things out, he's not inexperienced or seduced, and into Oliver long before Oliver does anything unmistakably flirtatious. It's also a movie which doesn't apologize for its main characters loving books, being, as mentioned, multilingual, and discussing a scene written by Marguerite de Navarre in the same passionate way that Oliver upon hearing a song on the radio dances. It's a great fictional world to spend two hours in. Highly reccommended.
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1302910.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.