CALL ME BY YOUR NAME FILLED MY HEART WITH WARMTH BEFORE BREAKING IT INTO A MILLION PIECES

Rating: 10/10 (5 August 2018)

Call Me By Your Name made me fell in love. With the characters, with the environment, the surroundings, with that wonderful carefree summer-feeling and with Italy. All I wanted to do after watching the film was to book the first best airplane to a small beautiful Italian village and spend my time there exploring the breathtaking nature by foot (or bike) and eat delicious food. For a film to have such power and to truly convey these feelings through the big screen to its viewers is remarkable. Call Me By Your Name is a lot of things and, maybe above all, it's real. It all just feels almost hauntingly real and what I as a viewer witness truly felt like everyday reality in this little village in northern Italy. Gudagnino has created a filmic world where reading books, cooling down from the heath by swimming in lakes and just simply existing without any obligations or huge plans is enough. Everything feels so wonderfully carefree. During one scene in the film, Oliver asks Elio what he's doing the whole summer and Elio's answer ("waiting for the summer to end") is so simple but it says so much about both him and several other young adults like him. Even though it can be argued that Call Me By Your Name is a huge film about certain big moments, Gudagnino also wonderfully emphasizes even the smallest details such as Oliver cracking an egg at the breakfast table way too hard. As the minutes fly by, it's impossible (at least for me personally) to not fall for these characters and their surroundings.
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I watched Call Me By Your Name in the beginning of January, and directly after the end credits finished I felt with complete certainty that I wouldn't see anything better all year. It's both a strange and wonderful feeling to have, and there's no denying it either. It's just a fact and it's better to accept it. The biggest villain in the film is the tragedy of love, but it's worth noting that it's not all doom and gloom. There's an underlying message of having the courage to actually feel things - both the good and all of the bad. This is probably the most evident in that perfect monologue towards the end delivered by Elio's father Mr. Perlman (a fantastic Stuhlbarg). It's nothing less of a masterpiece on its own and I just remember sitting in the cinema staring at the big screen with a huge lump in my throat, tears filling my eyes and goosebumps all over my body. That monologue was like the cherry on top of an already perfect ice-cream sundae.