Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

[Idioteque Stalker]

IMDB

[Idioteque Stalker]

This was pretty good. For whatever reason it reminded me of Lucrecia Martel's La Cienaga, except the polar opposite. Instead of people lounging around aimlessly with a sense of dread, it was rather people lounging around aimlessly with a sense of eroticism. I ultimately liked this aspect of it--the leisurely pace certainly helped to create a unique and vital tone, but also caused it to lose its footing at points, resulting in a movie that felt a little bit longer than its runtime.

Assuming we're to the point in which a gay movie is not controversial, I'll say this: it's the perfect Sundance movie. I mean that mainly as an insult, even though I did like the movie over all. It's extraordinarily pretty, but has a few blurry musical montages at which cynical viewers may roll their eyes. It's well acted, but there's at least one grand-stand-y monologue (Stuhlbarg's) that cries "for your consideration" in a way that some might find off-putting. And while the setting and characters mainly feel real, the burgeoning romance at times felt pretty phony. But what do I know.

[Peng]

“Don’t make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything. What a waste.” And the totality of first love experience is rendered such as to have us feel almost everything -- the summer's heat, flies hovering around meals, cool breeze on the bike, sudden cold splashes when one first swims -- all set against the impossibly gorgeous backdrop of sun-drenched Italian countryside. The details all so vivid, the shots elongated, the pacing in no hurry for any real plot or heavy drama, as if the environment is one that will be soaked and entrenched in memory for years to come. And for Elio (in an astounding performance from Timothée Chalamet that blends intellectual confidence and late-teenage gangly awkwardness so affectingly well), this context only helps confirm the all-consuming force of his infatuation as a transformative one. He truly loses himself in another, and it loops back to him as a permanent growth, all his precocious talents and knowledge finally having an experience of identity to match.

The tender sensuality of Elio's and Oliver's slow-burn attraction, in which the chemistry between Chalamet and Armie Hammer is conveyed though gradual accumulation of furtive gestures and casual glances (as well as the help of music, literature, and archaeology as their bridge towards each other), is followed by a pure rush of intoxicating, burned-bright passion. But what makes those two sections parts of a romance to remember is their capper, which underlines the film with melancholy and maturity, best encapsulated by Michael Stuhlbarg's magnificently heartfelt and tender monologue. His words help frame Elio's story in the larger context of a life, in all its memories and experiences. Remember everything. 9/10

[Weems]

I really wanted to like this, as I'm a big fan of I Am Love, but I ultimately found this nowhere near as swoon-worthy, so I agree with much of what Idiotheque wrote. I haven't read the book, but I feel like the script didn't do enough to develop Elio and Oliver and make their relationship convincing or moving, so I experienced the film at a remove for the whole runtime.

[Peng]

It's the film of the year to beat for me (can only see my score going up over time), but I can see how others can see it that way. Only want to protest at it being called a "Sundance" film though. So many expected this to premier at Cannes or Venice, and were very surprised to see it land there. Then at Sundance it stood out, favorably (as noted in a lot of critic reviews), because it doesn't feel like the kind of Sundance premiers at all. Every film festival name can be used as descriptor, both for good and bad connotations, but this feels much more "arthouse" in the vein of Cannes than being much of a "Sundance" one.

[Watashi]

Floored by this. First film of 2017 that I openly wept at (Stuhlberg's monologue).

This has finally opened up in more theaters, so I hope more get to see it.

[Ivan Drago]

I got to watch a screener copy of this earlier this week, and I echo the sentiments of most here. This was tremendous. I especially loved how it used the aesthetics of classic European arthouse cinema to tell its story.

I'll expand more on my thoughts in a review for the website I write for when it comes to town (not for another few weeks...bah), but between....that scene and the pie eating scene in A Ghost Story, it's been an interesting year for food on film.

[Spinal]

Saw this yesterday, and after sitting on it for a day, I'm still at a loss to understand why this has been so highly regarded critically. The final shot leading into the credits is nice. The performances are fine. I like the music. But I had a difficult time investing in the central relationship because, well, one of them is clearly a man and one of them is clearly a boy. I'm not sure how else to say it. It's kind of creepy. And even creepier that the film has the boy's father deliver a testimonial on behalf of their relationship. After seeing the film, I read that Armie Hammer's character is supposed to be 24. I will just say that this is not how it reads on screen. And since buying into the relationship is critical for the film to have any sort of effect, this was a pretty empty experience for me. I can only guess that the film's popularity has something to do with it being a thoroughly explored love story between two men in which neither of them meets a violent fate. That's all well and good, but on an artistic level, this film can't touch something like Brokeback Mountain or Moonlight.

[Ezee E]

This is... fine? Cool "Italian trip" vacation and all, but as Spinal says, the casting of Hammer is misplaced. It feels weird, and Hammer acknowledges it as such, but goes along with it anyway.

There's nothing about the movie that makes me interested in revisiting it. However, it DID make me revisit The Psychedelics song, and that's now in my Apple Music catalog.

[Henry Gale]

Pretty much far and away my favourite of the year now, replacing the harder to feel comfortable with (and especially tiresome to defend) mother!, which previously toppled above my other favourites of the year in large part because no matter what how much love I felt about it or could even concede about it to others on the negative side, it just felt so amazingly alien and outside of anything else made this year that it still felt vividly exceptional.

But now Call Me By Your Name is the one that, even for its more hypothetical straightforwardness, is the one I most can't quite know how to describe. It's the film that just made me feel the most the whole way though, completely gripped by it in the most cinematically sumptuous and indelible of ways, not knowing how to even really assess it like I would most other movies, just wrapped up in it as more of an increasingly emotionally, transportive daydream.

And it is the kind of work I'd dream about existing that never really seems to, or would even romanticize about movies I'd watched when I was younger, only to revisit them and realize that they weren't as they'd had remained in my memory, leaving me concerned if either they were never as wondrous as I remembered, or fear that I had instead changed considerably myself, fearful that I'd lost something in me to feel that way about films, either ones similar to it or otherwise, in the past or still unseen in the future.

But in this present, in these final days of this year, I can absolutely say I can't imagine having had a more beautiful experience with it. And like much of what the film ends up being about, I'm beyond glad I had this time with it, because it's of a rare sort. Unlike Elio though, I have the reality-breaking gift of being able to return to it all.

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And yeah, jeeeezus christ that Stuhlbarg scene. I feel like I never have to cry at another movie scene again it got me so good.

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[Ezee E]

Any thoughts on why traffic noise of cars was much louder and prominent in this movie compared to others? It seems to be on purpose. I just couldn't get why.

[Ezee E]

Love this piece of music that was in the movie too.

[TGM]

This was awful. :\

[Mal]

awfully good! Chalamet carries the whole film and he is phenomenal.

[MadMan]

Gorgeous and captivating, although the last act drags on a bit too much. I loved this film's score, and it might be the first film with Hammer that actually used him really well since The Social Network. I liked him in The Man From UNCLE, despite that bad accent, sure, but this movie reflects better on his handsome features.

[MadMan]

Also Stuhlbarg keeps doing work. I prefer him in this film over his part in The Shape of Water.

[Rico]

And even creepier that the film has the boy's father deliver a testimonial on behalf of their relationship.

This one scene elevated the film for me from "Ho-hum" to "Oh, that was interesting". Especially the part where he talks about the things that hold us back.

[Morris Schæffer]

I loved this. Having been to Northern Italy numerous times throughout my life I must say this definitely elevated the film even more for me. It felt like being on a holiday, the atmosphere was spot on, enveloping.

If I have a reservation it is perhaps that the Oliver character wasn't as layered, textured as the Elio character. The American seemed to treat this as more of a fling than it was for Elio, which is possibly why it came across as somewhat creepy to Spinal. Like perhaps he was taking advantage of a situation, although I admit I would be reaching here. Nevertheless, I didn't think Oliver's yearning for Elio came across as sincere as Elio's yearning for Oliver. Or perhaps he hid it well.

[Ezee E]

I've come to the feeling that Oliver just played Elio this whole time.

[MadMan]

I loved that they showed the piano scene at the Oscars. It was that clip that convinced me to go see the film in the first place.

Also using Psychedelic Furs is cheating. I love that band.

[Morris Schæffer]

Sequel is coming

http://www.slashfilm.com/call-me-by-...equel-details/

[Pop Trash]

Sequel is coming

http://www.slashfilm.com/call-me-by-...equel-details/

I hope they call it I Know What You Did Last Summer.

[Peng]

Also hoping they use the poster version that someone uploaded to letterboxd.

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[Wryan]

Finally got to see this. Quite liked it overall, but I didn't feel shattered by it or anything like that.

It's an idyll in parts, but it feels true and warm and languorous in its details. I didn't feel a creepiness factor--in part because of the year, in part because of the cultural setting, in part because so many relationships between two men have indeed been marked by a gap (shades of Greece?), and, finally, because Oliver showed quite a lot of apprehension at almost every turn. He didn't want to cause any trouble for or damage to someone he knew was young and new at this. From a few lines, it's fairly clear he also didn't come from nearly so open a situation as Elio's family presents. I think Oliver acquit himself very well, to the degree that I think all young men wandering in this direction would benefit from such a figure in their lives (in addition to bracingly frank and accepting parents), to hold their hands cautiously and guardedly, but lovingly, rather than exploit their naïveté, which is probably more common all things considered. I believe Oliver felt as Elio did but didn't have the courage to see it through. (I presume the marriage spoken of at the end is to a woman.) The movie captures the thickly dreamy sort of confusion in oscillating between lust and "baser" physical gratification and instead exploring something deeper and more keenly felt--the kind of connection that darkens the whispy outlines of your character and your sense of self. On the subject of sequels, I'm not sure I need to see a Before trilogy arise with these two as they continue to work on the something between them. I just feel thankful that they allowed me a summer glimpse of something private and intense and important for both of them, and where they go from there isn't really my business.

[Peng]

I'm usually not one to rewatch films with commentary, but between snippets I've seen from this and The Last Jedi, 2017 films might come with special features too good to ignore. (Sorry about the gigantic pictures; I saw them on twitter and there isn't a smaller version)

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