Day 42 - Call Me by Your Name


Day 42              Call Me by Your Name [2017]
                          
Screenplay                    James Ivory
Based on                       ‘Call Me by Your Name’ by André Aciman
Director                         Luca Guadagnino
Cinematography            Sayombhu Mukdeeprom
Music                            Sufjan Stevens
Leads                            Armie Hammer, Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar, Esther Garrel
Production                     Frenesy Film Company, La Cinéfacture, RT Features, Water’s End Productions

IMDb                                8.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes                96%

The Academy Award nominations were released yesterday and as this is a film blog I should probably be commenting on them somewhere. For now, I’ll stick with this though as it is hard enough to post daily. I mention the Academy Awards as this film has been nominated for best picture and it bloody well deserves it. Timothée Chalamet was also brilliant as Elio and deservedly earned himself an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. I wasn’t too sure about the casting of Armie Hammer as Oliver, he was great, but I just don’t personally feel that he was right for the role. The film tells the story of seventeen-year-old Elio falling in love with a graduate student Oliver who comes to stay with Elio’s family over a summer to help Elio’s father with his academic paperwork. It is about repressed sexuality and I can imagine that if someone who had experienced these feelings themselves watched it they would have been blown away. It is incredibly emotional and passionate, yet delicate at times. I didn’t like some scenes, the writing seems to be deliberately awkward and perhaps it’s supposed to express what it’s truly like to be in this situation but it didn’t work for me. Even though I watched on a shit quality television I could still tell that it was beautifully shot. The location that it is filmed in the Italian countryside is so beautiful of its own accord that even I could have been DP. There are some outrageous scenes in it thanks to the continuous building of nervous sexual tension between Elio and Oliver (the peach scene!!!!). The music is beautiful thanks to the tear-jerking chords of Sufjan Stevens. Definite win this one, I’m interested to see whether it wins anything.

Acting                           3.5 / 4
Writing                          2.5 / 4
Cinematography               3 / 4
Music                               3 / 4

HWF rating                 3 / 4