The medium of film has the
potential to not only to move audiences emotionally, but to speak to fundamentals
in the human condition so that we may know ourselves (and each other) better on
the subterranean level of essences. The 2017 film, Call Me by Your Name, is
not “gay cinema” even though 17-year-old Elio falls in love with Oliver, a
24-year-old beginning doctoral student when the latter is staying with Elio
and his parents at their villa in Italy during the summer of 1983. Falling-in-love,
so unmistakable once it has hit, is so utterly human at the gut-level that the
twists and turns in a narrative are but superficial in comparison, and even the
gender of the beloved may come to matter less than would typically be assumed. In
fact both Elio and Oliver are attracted to women, and after his summer stay
Oliver calls the Perlmans during a winter Jewish festival to announce that he is engaged; for even though Elio fell for Oliver, Oliver is not in love with Elio. Elio must take the unrequited love as a given, as about as hard as reality can be felt, and so Elio has the choice of whether to suffer the loss or "stuff it" emotionally by burning emotion itself from his very being. Precisely this decision is the subject of a father-son talk that he has with his dad after Oliver has
left. It is the substance of that talk that anchors the film firmly in the
human condition, such that even the narrative, not to mention the fact that Elio
has fallen for a man, is transcended. It is just such a transcendence that
renders the medium of film so substantial, even meaningful, even if mostly just
potentially. Parsing the father-son dialogue will lay bare this thesis.
At the commencement of the talk, it seems as if Elio’s dad does not grasp that his son has fallen for Oliver. “You two had a nice friendship,” his father says. “Yeah,” Elio wantonly replies. But his father is coy: “You’re too smart not to know how rare, how special what you two had was.” Really falling for another person, unlike merely making friends with someone, is indeed rare, and very special indeed. It is not just a matter of two intellects bonding. So Elio’s dad says, “Oliver may be intelligent, but he was more than intelligent. What you two had had everything and nothing to do with intelligence. It was good. You’re both lucky to have found each other because you too are good.” Everything and nothing to do with intelligence—intriguing! It is the goodness of the two men that rendered their “friendship” so special, and gave it so strong of a bond. For trust lacks between a good and bad person, but not between two good people. But are people really so dichotomous as being either “good” and “bad”? I think in terms of sexual “cheating,” and lying in general, the dichotomy may hold; some people seem to have a great deal of trouble being faithful, and ultimately such people are unfaithful to themselves for they cut themselves off from “good” people and thus genuine emotional intimacy. That such people don’t tend to change makes the dichotomy even more apparent. So I think Elio’s dad is on firm ground in highlighting how special it is that his son, a good person, has fallen for another good person. The goodness is evinced when Elio says of Oliver, “I think he was better than me,” to which his father replied, “I’m sure he’d say the same thing about you.” Elio replies, “Yeah. He’d say the same thing.” “It flatters you both,” his father says as if confirming his thesis that Elio and Oliver are indeed good, humble rather than self-centered, people. How rare; how very special.
But Oliver did not fall for
Elio, so even though the two men are good, no lasting romantic relationship
can, or even should, come of the summer deep-connection. So very rare,
and so very, very special a relationship of mutual love between two good
people surely is. Holding such a rarified gem, two people should move
mountains to be and stay together. Unfortunately, Elio is left with the emotions
but not with Oliver, who is to marry someone else. That the two could have been
together permanently is evinced in the story by the fact that an older gay couple
comes to visit the Perlmans, so it is not as if that story-world excludes that
possibility. Oliver has not fallen for Elio, and this must be intellectually
and emotionally accepted by Elio. Recognizing this, Elio’s father observes,
“And when you least expect it, nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest
spot. Just remember, I am here.” Falling in unrequited love exposes us to human
nature such that it is felt at its weakest, perhaps most painful, spot.
Here again, Elio’s father again brings up the dichotomy of good and bad people in how a person in Elio’s position choses to deal with the emotional pain—and it is the sort of pain that comes back unrelentingly every morning rather than quickly dissipates as soon as the wind changes. “Right now, you may not wanna feel anything, maybe you never wanted to feel anything,” Elio’s father says. “And maybe it’s not to me you’d want to speak about these things, but feel something you obviously did. Look, you had a beautiful friendship. Maybe more than a friendship. And I envy you. . . . We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster, that we go bankrupt by the age of 30, and have less to offer, each time we start with someone new, but to make yourself feel nothing, so as not to feel anything. What a waste.”
Indeed, what a waste, for a sensitive heart that has not rashly eviscerated emotion itself due to past hurt is among the most precious gems that can be held in the palm of one's hands. Elio is sensitive, so his dad is worried that his son may flee from emotion altogether and thus be emotionally unavailable in the future. Finally Elio's father acknowledges something emotionally more than a friendship has gripped his son, and that that something is of such emotional depth that sensitive person could rashly decide to rip out emotion from one’s very being in order not to feel such pain. The dichotomy between good (meaning healthy) and bad (meaning weak) lies in the choice that the person makes: caste out emotion itself or accept the feeling of emotional pain as part of being fully human. I think it is at this point that the film becomes significant. Elio, being good, allows himself to feel the pain, and in fact the last scene of the film depicts him in a sustained camera shot looking into the fireplace utterly hurt because Oliver has just called to inform the Perlman’s of his engagement. That the camera-shot is very long is ingenious, for such is the nature of that hurt.
One implication is that Elio will be able to be fully emotionally available when he falls in love again (for he is just 17 years-old), for he has not severed his emotional life as if feeling emotion were somehow toxic. He deserves to fall for a person who is also good in the sense of being willing to take hard choices rather than obviate them as cheaters and, more generally, liars are wont to do. Drug addicts and sex addicts need not apply; Elio can offer genuine emotional intimacy wherein emotional trust is a given rather than felt as a vulnerability because the other person is weak. Beyond the last scene being able to serve as a lesson, or guide, on how to deal emotionally with the loss of a beloved, the father-son talk plus Elio’s decision not to repress emotion itself gets at a fundamental in what it means to experience being human. It isn’t all roses, for sometimes we feel even excruciating emotional hurt from unrequited love—the point being that it is a very good decision to be willing to feel rather than repress the feeling even though it comes back day after day until finally time, acting as a thickener, allows for moving on naturally.
