🌈 HAPPY PRIDE MONTH🏳️🌈
"Call Me by Your Name" does not emphasize homosexuality, but presents it in a way that's universal and relatable, although the previous one tends to grab more attention. The gentle and tender story is more like a coming-of-age tale of a boy. In the brief summer, he experiences a deeply memorable love that leads to his awakening and maturation.
In 1980s Italy, 17-year-old Elio encounters Oliver, an American exchange student who is 7 years older than him. Over six weeks, he goes through the ups and downs of first love, gaining insights into expectations and loss before adulthood. There is sweetness and melancholy in their journey.
To some extent, the summer of Italy contributes to the excellence of the film. The ancient ruins, scattered books, splashes in the swimming pool, lazy afternoons under the sun, ripe and juicy apricots, wafting cigarette smoke, sweaty parties, tentative touches of fingertips, awkward kisses, and the first sexual encounter—all of these are adorned with golden sunlight, as if time momentarily pauses, suggesting that everything might stay in this summer moment forever. These external elements of time and space become outward manifestations and symbols of the budding, indeterminate forms of love.
What makes this story remarkable within its genre is, first and foremost, its presentation as a universal form of love without deliberately emphasizing gender. Its gentleness, beauty, romance, and loss are universally relatable aspects of love, not limited to gay romance. In other words, it lacks any ideological agenda, political correctness, intentional eroticism, or voyeuristic perspective. On the contrary, both Elio and Oliver have girlfriends, and even at the moment when Elio has gay love with Oliver, he also explores his first sexual experience with his girlfriend. The two characters transcend gender in an artistic sense, not in terms of physical or legal gender transcendence. The relationship between them is pure love, stripped of numerous limitations.
People are touched by stories simply because they see in them true love—one that is devoid of utilitarian motives, impossible to fulfill, transcending all trivialities, experiences, and worldly concerns, a pure desire to be close to each other.
In fact, "Call Me by Your Name" hides many intriguing details: discussions about etymology, variations, and adaptations of classical music, bronze statues salvaged from the sea, a few lines of dialogue under a World War I monument, Elio's mother reciting old love stories... All of these elements blend to create an atmosphere. History is condensed and resurrected, juxtaposed against reality. The past experiences never truly vanish; they achieve a form of eternity, just like love.
When Elio and Oliver sit together under the sun for the first time, Elio says they are just waiting for the summer to end. Oliver asks, "What do you do in the winter then? Wait for the summer to come again?" In the end, the boy Elio experiences the arrival of winter, silently shedding tears at the crackling fireplace. The complex expressions in that long shot are evidence of his growth.
Whether we agree with such a relationship or not, we are all moved by the words spoken by Elio's father. It is a simple truth about life, unassuming yet deeply touching.
We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster that we go bankrupt by the age of 30 and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything—what a waste!
How you live your life is your business. Just remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once, and before you know it, your heart’s worn out. And as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now, there’s sorrow, pain; don’t kill it, and with it, the joy you’ve felt.
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