Brief background as to why I selected this film to review:

The characters, setting and colours I feel are so beautifully combined that the film is near perfection. The link to my practise is the slowness of the film, the feelings developing and the moments of quiet, something I feel is necessary when developing documentary work, there is no rush as the work is made on the same time scale as the people involved. The classical music also added to these heightened feelings, and made me think about how music and film are used frequently in documentary work and how they could feed into my own projects nicely.

Luca Guadagnino sets out a sublime scene of endless summer in his most recent film Call me by your Name, not uncommon in his work, as he explores the suburban Italy, just a reach from major cities and unknown to most unless local. It has to be said that this setting is key to each of his films, A Bigger Splash, set just outside of Rome and allowing viewers an escapism only possible through setting in cinema. 

Call me by your name follows the seventeen-year-old protagonist Elio, an expert in transcribing classical music, as he explores a summer of love that everyone can allude to. His lover, Oliver has been invited to the Italian holiday home, as a graduate in archaeology and to study alongside Elio’s father. Whilst the eternal sunlight on the peach orchard, green vast hills and rivera setting allows this escapism, there is also an undeniable allure to the families riches and grandiose. We see them lounging in beautifully decorated rooms, eating and drinking in a sunlit courtyard and speaking about a bourgeoisie itinerary that we can only read through the subtitles as they speak several languages. It’s a type of class envy, but one of admiration and only dreamed about, there is no grudged malice. Guadagnino captures the essence of summer love in such a crisp andbeautiful way, with the physical contact and body language letting on more than the dialogue, which is minimal in itself as our protagonist develops through the tiniest of touches, the grazing of an arm.

The outlook on homosexual love is integral to the success of the film, as to me, it felt like the first time I had seen it being presented in the same depth as heterosexual love. There were moments of couples gazing, of holding hands, of childish fantasy, which I haven’t experienced before in gay cinema and which I think is incredibly important in telling that side of the story this makes it more acceptable. Their love is normalised, as it should be. This sense of escapism returns with regards to their love, as there is no prejudice against the lovers, which there probably would have been in the 1980’s, but instead a sense of the idealised world, and even though the ending is not joyous, it’s encapsulating of the story and relatable to many. 

The score, comprising of classical music, the psychedelic furs and Sufjan Stevens, is impeccable and expertly done, allowing for the development of a slow and moving tale. Stevens voice is like a whisper in the ears of the protagonists as they move on their romantic journey, and each time I listen I am taken back to moments in the film, which I find to be a part of cinematic magic. In the film’s end, in Elio’s heartbreak, Stevens ‘Visions of Gideon’ plays as tears roll down his cheeks, and we feel a sadness as the lyrics say all that Elio and the viewers feel. It also allows reflection on the events in the film itself, and the slowed pace of the film, as not much happens, yet our protagonists have experienced so much physically and emotionally that the same cannot be said for him. Guadagnino perfectly illustrates the magic of a special summer and its powers to make so much or so little happen, the events becoming ingrained in us forever.