"Call Me By Your Name" is the cinema adaptation of André Aciman's bestseller. The film is an emotionally stirring yet subtle story of a first great gay love
Cinema release of "Call Me By Your Name": 1 March 2018
This rural place in the north of Italy seems like a dreamy paradise, detached from the world. An old villa surrounded by a garden lined with magnificent peach trees, where time has come to a standstill. People sit outside at brunch, bathe in the historic pool, chat, read, play the piano. And you "just wait until the summer is over", says Elio (Thimotée Chalamet).
Oliver - not entirely dissimilar in stature to the Greek heroes
The 17-year-old is spending the holiday months here with his parents at the Perlman family estate. And as in previous years, his father, an archaeologist, once again has a PhD student as a guest. This summer, the American Oliver (Armie Hammer) is to help him sort slides of ancient statues and archive papers. The fact that Oliver is not entirely dissimilar in stature to the Greek heroes may be a coincidence.
The Perlman family is sophisticated, upper-class and at the same time free-spirited. They parley in a variety of languages, and are both gourmet and cosmopolitan. Director Luca Guadagnino stages this sun-drenched upper-class idyll at an unusually leisurely pace and with exquisitely sensual images. He carefully feels his way towards the slowly but inexorably developing love romance between Elio and Olive.
At the beginning, however, Elio finds the somewhat overconfident, always charming and articulate student more of an annoyance. When Oliver offers to massage his neck, he vigorously rejects his touch, but is nevertheless fascinated by him without being able to interpret this attraction. In any case, both are very keen to be seen flirting with girls and women. In particular, when an older gay couple comes to visit, Elio demonstratively smooches his French girlfriend.
Uncertainties and conflicting feelings
The erotic tension between Elio and Oliver is almost palpable for the viewer, and not just because the two are seen everywhere with their upper bodies bare and dressed only in boxer shorts. And yet it is ultimately the much less experienced Elio who takes matters into his own hands, overcomes all his insecurities and conflicting feelings - and conquers Oliver, who is seven years his senior.
"Call Me By Your Name" is an unusual queer film in many respects. In its way, it seems to have fallen out of time. Only gradually can the plot be assigned to the early 80s through a few details - kitschy, dramatic Italo pop hits, Walkmans instead of iPods and slide projectors instead of video projectors. The fact that the gay old master James Ivory, the now 90-year-old creator of film classics such as "Maurice" and "Room with a View", worked on the screenplay and produced the film is also evident in the sensual staging and opulent set design.
The love that develops, or rather explodes, between Oliver and Elio remains largely hidden, but it also becomes clear that neither of them should expect any repression from society or their families. In Guadagnino's film based on the 2007 bestseller of the same name by US author André Aciman (published in German under the title "Nenn mich bei meinen Namen"), male relationships may not be commonplace, but they are hardly worth mentioning.
Probably the most unusual masturbation scene in film history...
This may seem a little unworldly, but it allows Guadagnino to focus entirely on what drives Oliver and, above all, Elio. They try to find their own place in the world, their desire and longing, their curiosity in discovering the other's body and sexuality - and not least their feelings for each other and the contradictions associated with them. Elio's shame about his uninhibited sexual desire, for example, culminates in what is probably the most unusual masturbation scene in film history: the wet and cheerful abuse of an overripe peach.
Anyone who is able to get involved in this light-footed and melancholy emotional drama will inevitably be drawn into one of the most beguiling love stories of recent years and will rediscover themselves in many situations on this emotional journey of discovery.
Armie Hammer (who seems a little too old for the role of Oliver) and newcomer Thimotée Chalamet (who was rightly rewarded with an Oscar nomination) succeed in embodying their emotional turmoil, all the hesitation, insecurities and emotional exuberance in an absolutely believable, haunting and completely kitsch-free way.
Call Me By Your Name: Pain follows the farewell
The intoxication of emotions ends here with summer. The pain follows the parting, and this heartbreak, like so much in this film, hardly needs words. Body language, looks, gestures and atmospheric images are enough to empathise with what it means not to be able to live the first really great love.
What follows is the only explanatory monologue in this film that will leave no gay viewer untouched. Elio's father (Michael Stuhlbarg) tries to comfort his son in his parting pain. He does so at eye level and in a way that every gay man could only wish for from his parents. His little speech has nothing of a meaningless "it'll be alright" advice, is neither admonishing nor does it show alienation, quite the opposite. He not only recognises the special nature of this friendship, but sees it as a gift. To have experienced something quite extraordinary with another person that many people are denied for an entire lifetime.
"Call Me By Your Name". Directed by Luca Guadagnino. With Thimothée Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Esther Garel, Michael Stuhlbarg and others. Italy/France/USA 2017, 133 minutes, cinema release 1 March
Trailer for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBVbtKqn61w
André Aciman's novel has also been published in a new paperback edition to coincide with the cinema release: "Call Me by Your Name" (dtv, 228 pages, 10.90 Euro)
