In his acclaimed 2017 romance, Luca Guadagnino examines infatuation and desire through the lens of bittersweet nostalgia.
When looking at Luca Guadagnino’s filmography, his most recent release, Bones and All is easy to deem his darkest romance yet, but Call Me by Your Name is brutal in its own right. While it lacks blood and gore, the film is an emotional stab to the heart, brimming with melancholy and tragedy beneath its dreamy pastels. The acclaimed 2017 romance follows Elio (Timothée Chalamet)’s during a life-changing summer when he experienced a magical, fleeting romance with his father’s older summer intern, the 24-year-old Oliver (Armie Hammer). A bittersweet haze of nostalgia permeates every frame and casts a cloud of melancholy over moments that defined this pivotal summer.
Elio is an impressionable 17-year-old who becomes utterly infatuated and overcome with desire for an older man who never intended to commit to more than a summer fling. Guadagnino makes this power imbalance known throughout the film, visually painting a towering and all-encompassing aura around Oliver that dominates the screen. Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom often shoots Oliver from a lower angle, mimicking the feeling of gazing up at him. By doing this, we see Oliver in the way Elio will likely remember him later, his commanding presence held immense power over an utterly infatuated Elio.
When Oliver first arrives at the villa, he is immediately established as an enigmatic visitor with a powerful presence and an air of mystique. Studying him like a foreign creature, Elio’s parents gawk over Oliver’s tall stature as he gets out of the cab. He soon captures the attention of everyone in the little Italian town, with Elio’s mother, Annella (Amira Casar), even referring to him as “la muvi star.” As Oliver descends the staircase for his first meal with the Perlman family, the camera shoots him from a low angle and the sun flare from the window creates an ethereal, god-like aura around him. The only sound is that of his feet loudly and confidently marching down the steps and toward the breakfast table. As he descends the stairs, the camera follows him as he enters the patio, showcasing how his presence so effortlessly commands the room. With these choices Guadagnino establishes Oliver in the context of Elio’s memory, cinematically mimicking his growing infatuation and all-encompassing desire.
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Before their climactic confession of feelings, we witness a string of scenes that appear mundane on the surface, but each carries significant weight in Elio’s reminiscence of the summer. By forgoing a more traditional narrative structure to instead showcase fleeting moments, Guadagnino depicts how it is often the most mundane moments that become the most significant memories. In one such scene, Oliver joins Elio’s friends for a volleyball match, while Elio and others spectate from the grass. Oliver runs to get a sip of water, firmly touching and massaging Elio’s shoulder as he drinks. Oliver slyly plays it off like he’s trying to remove a knot of tension, but Guadagnino’s camera work zeroes in on the fleeting touch and Elio’s face in response. No dialogue is said to denote Elio’s feelings at this moment, but in the span of a few seconds, his expression shifts and contorts, a mixture of panic and shock lighting up his face. In contrast, Oliver is inscrutable, sunglasses masking his expression and his suave composure remaining intact as Elio lurches under his touch. It’s a sequence that would appear insignificant if seen from objectivity, but this moment was monumental for Elio, charged with mutual unspoken desire.
Guadagnino charges simple moments with electric passion, depicting how fleeting touches nearly caused an enamored Elio to short-circuit. On their first trip to town together, they engage in the typically bland introductory small talk. We watch them from a distance, making clear the largeness and ease of Oliver’s presence in contrast to Elio’s small, uneasy disposition. As they get up to leave, Oliver places his hand on Elio’s shoulder. Quickly after he touches Elio’s shoulder, an upbeat, whimsical, and frenetic score begins to play, elevating the electrifying significance of Oliver’s touch at this moment. This simple gesture is monumental in the context of Elio’s remembrance, with the introduction of music emphasizing this. The camera lingers on him for a significant period as Oliver rides his bike away, unable to move his gaze from him. By remaining fixed on Elio for several beats, we see that a simple touch has left him reeling, completely awestruck, and overcome with attraction. Laissez-faire moments of small talk and meandering bike rides are shot with careful nuance and attention that illuminates their importance in Elio’s memory, depicting a growing infatuation that ultimately leaves his heart irreparably wounded.
Once Oliver and Elio act on their feelings, the film’s wandering and relaxed pace speeds to shorter, fleeting moments of intimacy and passion between them. This shift in pacing mimics how tragically brief his time with Oliver felt. Their short-lived romance culminates with Oliver and Elio traveling to a distant town on their final night together. They roam through the dark, shadowy streets of the city drunkenly, dancing and kissing freely and openly. The song “Love My Way” by The Psychedelic Furs, which played early in the film when Oliver and Elio were out dancing, begins playing again, a nostalgic callback to when the summer had just started and their feelings were first blooming. As Elio and Oliver have their last kiss, the shot goes out of focus, distilling to a textured, blurry image as they passionately embrace. Its haziness evokes the somber feeling of looking back on a cherished moment that has become a distant, intangible memory.
At the end of the film, the story skips forward to months later in the dead of winter, the warm colors of summer are replaced with shades of blue and darkness. The change epitomizes Elio’s post-romance gloom, marking a stark visual contrast to that dream-like summer. The film’s final shot, a long take of Elio as he cries in front of the fire, features another musical callback that elicits a sense of nostalgia in the viewer. The lyrics of the song “Visions of Gideon,” written for the film by Sufjan Stevens, repeat the phrase “I have loved you for the last time, is it a video?” The question is a somber acknowledgment of a tragic romance that is no longer tangible, but only alive in the confines of Elio’s memories. As the credits begin to roll, the camera remains fixed on Elio, the flickering embers of the fire emitting warmth and light on his face as he cries. With such a long take, we must reconcile with the pain this romance has caused him. A summer that felt magical is now tinged with melancholy. With Call Me by Your Name, Guadagnino paints a nostalgic tale of an all-consuming romance, now only alive through bittersweet memories.
Molly is a Features Writer at Collider. With a B.A. in Film Studies from UNC Chapel Hill, you're most likely to find her at the movies or at a coffee shop writing about movies. She also runs a film blog called Mise En Queens at miseenqueens.com.
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