Call Me By Your Name started streaming earlier in the week, and I began watching minutes after it was available. It now ranks as one of my favorite films. Beautifully shot, directed, acted and written. Incredibly subtle, true, honest and emotionally insightful.
I read the book a few months ago, so I was excited about the film when I first heard about it. But I was also apprehensive. The book is quite an experience in and of itself, and it mainly takes place inside of Elio’s head. We see everything from Elio’s perspective. We look out at the world through his eyes. But film is voyeuristic. We become an unseen observer rather than a confidant. So I wasn’t sure they could do the book justice, and after seeing the first trailer, I feared it would be an uninspired, cheap indie, an insipid flop. I feared many wouldn’t give the book a go if the movie was bad. But then all the positive reviews started coming in, and a lot of people were saying it was in the same league as Maurice, Brokeback Mountain and Moonlight. Now that I’ve seen it, I wholeheartedly agree. I loved every minute.
Some are saying that because Elio and Oliver so readily accepted their desires for one another without the need to question their sexuality or justify it or label it, we have reached a turning point. One review I read called it the first post-gay film, whatever that means. But I don’t agree with all that.
First of all, Elio and Oliver aren’t gay. They’re bisexual. And there is most certainly some serious angst going on. Both characters are cultured, well read, highly educated and sophisticated, so they intellectually know having a sexual and romantic interest for someone of your own sex shouldn’t be a big deal. They’re far ahead of their time for 1983. But they know the rest of the world isn’t quite up to speed, and they’re not quite there on a gut level themselves despite their backgrounds.
They are coy with each other in the first half of the movie in a way they wouldn’t have been if their attraction had been hetero. And once they establish a romantic physical relationship, they’re secretive about it. They don’t want people to know about them. And it’s not just that they’re demure or private. They’re afraid. They don’t hold hands, or kiss or dance together in public, but they both do all of those things with girls. And they don’t “come out” because for Elio the story takes place before he would come out. His attraction to Oliver is a revelation to him. He wasn’t expecting it. And he most certainly doesn’t want anyone to know yet. It took him weeks to find the courage to tell Oliver. As for Oliver, we don’t know who he’s told back home. Oliver is a guest in Italy. It seems unlikely he’d feel the need to rush all over the village telling locals he would never see again that he likes both men and women.
It’s not that they’re carefree and nonchalant about their relationship. I don’t understand where some are getting that. However, the story is primarily about their love and not about their fear. Maybe that’s what seems so new and fresh.
Like Elio, I was 17 in the summer of 1983, and by then I had known I liked boys for six years. I was desperately lonely and full of longing. My body ached to be touched. I needed both physical and emotional intimacy. I wish I could have spent that summer in northern Italy. Wish my family had a beautiful old house surrounded by a verdant landscape. Wish my father had been as accepting and wise as Elio’s. And I wish I had become friends with someone like Elio or Oliver. Or maybe Elio and Oliver.
There is a line in the book that didn’t make it into the film, Elio says he and Oliver might see two young men together when they’re old, and it will stir them. They will call it envy because to call it regret would break their hearts.
No comments:
Post a Comment