The steamy sexuality and physicality of “Call Me by Your Name” seems to be all anyone can talk about. The scene with the peach. The hottest volleyball game since “Top Gun.” Armie Hammer’s voice reading the audio book. And again, that peach scene. The normally chilly Walter Reade Theater felt oddly warm during a press and industry screening earlier this week, and it wasn’t just the Indian summer weather outside. But while Luca Guadagnino’s romance is unquestionably about the desire for sexual–as well as sensuous–pleasures, it’s also about the pursuit of intellectual pleasure. Art-house audiences are used to stylish sex scenes, but a film that bares skins while it revels in debates about Italian politics, Latin word origins and the authorship of Bach pieces is a rare find.
Set “somewhere in Northern Italy” in 1983, “Call Me by Your Name” explores the sexual awakening of Elio (Timothée Chalamet), the 17-year-old son of American antiquities professor Mr. Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg). The family is staying at their Italian villa for the summer, and 24-year-old Oliver (Hammer) is Perlman’s student and their guest for the season. Elio is drawn to their visitor, and their interactions spark, first ambiguously and then both Oliver and Elio’s intentions are clear. Their proximity in the house leads to small intimacies captured in long, languid takes. Together, they embark on a feverish, fumbling romance that at once feels universal in its approach to first love and highly specific to Elio’s summer in northern Italy.
That setting creates cravings for sensuous experiences beyond the carnal ones. The slap of bare feet on concrete. A gulp of freshly squeezed apricot juice. A hand knifing through the water in a perfect swimming stroke. The quiet thwack of a spoon on a soft-boiled egg. The body and its senses are a focus, though “Call Me by Your Name” doesn’t neglect satisfying the minds of either its characters or its audience.
Shortly after Oliver’s introduction, we see him correct his professor on the etymology of the word “apricot,” wowing both his hosts and the viewer. This is a film that doesn’t just revere Hammer’s character for his lithe limbs and perfectly wavy hair; it admires his brain
However, the admiration isn’t unilateral; Oliver wonders at Elio’s musical gifts, his wide-ranging intelligence and his love of learning. As the only child of a professor father and a translator mother (Amira Casar), Elio lives in a family that values being a scholar, and he thinks nothing of spending his time off from school learning. The environment – which has him slipping between English, French and Italian with an enviable ease – is built around intellectualism and the constant desire to absorb more knowledge.
The flick of folding a page over to mark a place. The sound of Marguerite de Navarre’s 16th century collection “The Heptaméron” being read aloud in multiple languages. The scratch of a pencil transcribing the notes of a classical piece. The back and forth of a lively debate about Italy’s five political parties. “Call Me by Your Name” takes joy in a particular strain of braininess, with enthusiasm rooted in each medium’s classics, whether it’s Bach in music, Roman sculpture or the films of Luis Buñuel. The relationship between Oliver and Elio even echoes the ancient Greek model of teacher and student, as Oliver educates him in his first real attempt at love.
“Is there anything you don’t know?” Oliver asks Elio. He replies, “If you only knew how little I know about the things that matter.” Though Elio briefly denigrates intellectual pursuits, “Call Me by Your Name” is clear in its message that these things are important and they endure. There can be value in both the temporary pleasures of the body and heart, as well as the lasting joys of art and knowledge. The latter may be a bit less sexy in the moment, but Guadagnino’s film shows us that they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
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