It feels a bit strange to think about “Moonlight” right now. The Oscar envelope flap feels like it was eons ago, but it was around this time last year that Barry Jenkins‘ lovely, little film was making a huge noise. The movie went from critical darling, to arthouse hit, to adored Best Picture winner, confirming that the tastemakers at A24 had the goods to bring their films the distance in the awards seasons, while putting major Hollywood studios on notice.
Now, another tale of two young men falling in love could take home some hardware at the Oscars — “Call Me By Your Name.” As they are wont to do, awards season pundits wonder if Oscar voters might penalize Luca Guadagnino‘s movie because another (vaguely) similar film won last year. However, the director doesn’t mind if “Call Me By Your Name” is mentioned in the same breath as “Moonlight.”
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“I love Barry Jenkins’ film and I am excited by the comparison. His work has a formal style that comes from a certain kind of cinema that I love: in particular, Hou Hsiao-hsien. So I feel a sense of brotherhood with what Barry Jenkins did,” Guadagnino told The Guardian.
The buzz around “Call Me By Your Name” has grown to such a volume that Luca Guadagnino has already been talking about making upwards of five sequels, revisiting the lives of Oliver and Elio as they get older. And the director points to some cinematic touchstones that have achieved similar storytelling aims.
“These characters are so fantastic, and I want to know what happens to them. The last 40 pages of the book tell you about 20 years in the life of Oliver and Elio. So I started to think about Michael Apted’s ‘Up,’ and the cycle of films [Francois] Truffaut devoted to the character of Antoine Doinel. And I thought, maybe it’s not a question of sequel, it’s a question of chronicling everyone in this film. I think seeing these characters growing in the bodies of these actors will be quite fantastic,” he explained.
Certainly, the horizon for Oliver and Elio has plenty of possibilities. “Call Me By Your Name” is now playing in limited release.
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