Call Me By Your Name

Elio and Oliver would never have ended well if it had carried on longer than the summer of 1982 in Southern Italy.

As I laid in my small twin bed in my creaky old university apartment I watched the very highly anticipated movie, not because I wanted to, but because I had become tired and fed up with the repetitive and predictable formula so commonly seen in movies and tv shows.

After two hours, when Elio sat down in front of the fireplace, I was overcome with a sense of melancholia.

Sad because they weren’t together.

Happy because they weren’t together.

A perplexing feeling that morphed into a feeling of unease.

The movie was a shell of paradise, yet after watching it countless times it was apparent that there were undertones of human sexuality, family dynamics, and religious beliefs encased in this piece of motion picture art threatening to crack the fragile connection between these two people.

The moment the screen went blank after watching it for the first time I felt the unfamiliar burn behind my eyes and I quickly clicked replay. Although I was privy to the conclusion, I willed Oliver not to get on that train, to not go back to his own life, to not leave Elio heartbroken.

To my dismay, Oliver gets on the train, leaving Elio all alone on the train platform.

There are not many movies that affect me enough to bring tears to my eyes and never ones that leave me so shocked that I have to watch it again immediately after. However, this movie shook me and made me analyze it, as though I was in my second-year English course so that I could discover the reason why they were never meant to be together forever. Why would Andre Aciman take us through such a lovely winding road of discovery and understanding, only to rip it from us? And then I understood and commended Aciman for making the tough decision for us.

In 1982 Italy, when homosexuality was taboo, religion was at large, and the age gap between Elio and Oliver was an overwhelming obstacle, it’s hard to imagine how they would have successfully worked as a couple; with them in completely different stages of life.

Ultimately, no matter how much I wanted them to be together, their short and fleeting time together satisfied me. Better to have known you loved and were loved entirely than to go through life wondering if such exists.

I’ve come across people who said it was “terrible!”, “alright” or “boring” because there was no plot or climax; where in any typical movie Elio and Oliver would be cast away by social rejection or health issues, only to reconnect at the very end while a cheerful song plays and the credits role, giving the allusion that it was a happily ever after.

My opinion that it is now my favorite movie of all times is likely going to be mocked and dismissed as a teens infatuation with the actor’s good looks or sexual curiosity but it’s so much more than that.

The loving and caring family dynamic of Elio’s parents; how they nurtured and embraced their son, combined with the breath-taking scenery and powerful love story is what makes it such a powerful and influential movie.

And rather than abruptly jerk you from the movie with cheery music, Director, Luca Guadagnino, so elegantly leads you out of the movie with the soft voice of Sufjan Stevens and the crackling fire. So when the final credit appears you feel as though a piece of you was taken because while the Director was gently bringing us back to the twenty-first century, there is an overwhelming feeling of being so small and insignificant because Stevens makes you FEEL the earth and its overwhelming entirety.

It’s atypical movie formula that makes each glance allude to something more, or how in an instant you sensed a potential threat but were immediately reassured with the soft sounds of piano and violin in the background as Elio and Oliver biked through the country side and dozed in the sun-scorched fields, is what made me fall in love with it.

So as I sit here in the car on my way home from a weekend at the cottage, skin, a sun-kissed amber hue from sitting out too long, and the feeling of an extra five pounds sitting at my hips, I listen to the soundtrack and am overcome again with a sense of melancholy.

Listening to Steven’s soft hypnotic voice instills an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness and a growing fear of disappearing into oblivion but draws me back to the one summer in Southern Italy many years ago when a boy met a gentleman and fell in love.