Rarely does seeing a movie affect me as much as Call Me By Your Name did. The perfect portrayal of longing resonated with me for two or three days after watching it. There is something about the way this movie depicts the longing of a first love, gently getting closer and closer to someone in timid, mutual exploration... the Summer days and evenings listening to a portable radio in a small Italian village with your thoughts constantly wrapped up in desire and doubt. Small details of this film just made me smile (the Invicta backpack, the old woman "cleaning" green vegetables outside in the Sun, the old men at the bar...). Oliver/Armie Hammer's admiration of ancient Greek statues parallels the ephebic, classical beauty of Elio/Timothee Chalamet. It just made me cry when Elio notices Oliver was wearing the same shirt as the first day he got there, and asks if he can keep it when Oliver leaves. There are some striking similarities with Eric Rohmer's "Conte d'été", in some scenes the influence of this movie seems especially obvious... like a tribute from a way to interpret love, to another way to interpret love.
It's such a deep, sensitive story on the delicate, but ultimately cruel nature of longing...
Reviews
2 Reviews
Mia madre
(2015)
A roller-coaster of feelings
1 October 2015
Nanni Moretti has come a long way portraying Italy - mixing the inner, often neurotic, workings of a person with the harsh clash of Reality. In this movie, reality itself is the world of fiction: Margherita Buy plays the director of a movie about the working crisis that has been tearing apart Italy's employment situation for years now. The set is a stressful environment which recalls the one described by Truffaut's "Day for Night" and adds to the emotional exhaustion of the director Buy, facing her mother's illness. Whereas "The Son's Room" found its characters coming to terms with loss as a matter of fact, this movie rather deals with the whole painful process that leads to loss: the slow steps that lead to the acknowledgement of what is inevitable. The soul-wrenching hospital scenes and the numerous flashbacks from Buy's family memories are cleverly (and thankfully) counterbalanced with the comedic, hilarious traits of John Turturro, the main star or better even, a proper "diva", in Buy's (and subsequently, Moretti's) movie. You'll found yourself cracking up with laughter while that small tear on your cheek hasn't dried yet, and both moments are filmed in a superb way. Nanni Moretti himself plays a role as Margherita Buy's brother: both actors have a similar style and it's great to finally see them working together. They both speak in an extremely calm manner, as if they were trying to explain some really obvious truth to the viewers and to other characters; both have a history of playing awkward, sometimes neurotic, fragile people who will eventually burst out, only to quickly apologize in their usual calm and polite manner. Those who are familiar with Moretti's work will recognize some of his motifs: Rome settings, loud singing in cars, deadpan statements on the inability to work in a relationship, parental confrontations. Overall a very good movie that fits well in Moretti's recent history.
Tell Your Friends