Perhaps you saw
via my Instagram that I went and saw
Call Me By Your Name a 12th (and most probably final) time in the theater last night. That's a lot of times to see a movie over the span of four months, you guys! My first time seeing it was on October 3rd (
here's my immediate dumbstruck reaction in case you missed it) and I'd seen it three times within a week - it was hopeless from there, I was lost. But I haven't run out of new thoughts about the movie - each time brings something. A bit I missed, a sudden new feeling - they've stopped being earth-shattering, but little bit by bit they add up.
Like how I think this moment in the movie (it's Oliver and Elio's very first "Morning After") might be the most beautiful that Armie looks in the entire film... making it by extension probably the most beautiful he's ever looked on screen, ever. And because this film's a tactile paradise you can actually hear the sound of Oliver running his fingers along his mouth here, stubble brushing against skin. Bliss.
There's also a wonderfully playful bit of camera-work that, like so much of the film, says so much through absence - Elio comes out to the table and kisses his mother Annella on the cheek, and then...
... moves along and watches him kiss his father, and the camera follows him over to his seat that's there is the slightest almost imperceptible lean, as Oliver fills the left-hand side of the frame...
... that makes you think Elio is going to also lean over and plant a sloppy one on Oliver too. For just a second. That it doesn't happen is a thing you feel though, which fits in with what I had to say in
my long-form piece on the movie at The Film Experience - although this world is safe and Elio's parents are what we dream all of our parents could be or could have been these two still aren't free, they still have to be secretive. I love watching Annella in this scene...
Her glances feel so pregnant with meaning every single time - Amira Casar makes so much out of this role, you guys. I paid a lot of specific attention to her this time through and actually noticed a quick moment I never had before! Imagine that being possible! The scene is actually a nice mirror of the one above too...
"We almost had sex last night..."
This edit always gets a laugh every time I seen it with an audience - the implication being, as Elio pauses for dramatic effect and we see him & Oliver in the frame together, that Elio is telling his father that the two of THEM almost had sex last night. He quickly adds "Marzia and me" and diffuses the sudden gay spectacle he'd provided his father, but the seed (as it were) is planted.
The comedy continues as we see that Annella is there too and only supposedly half-hearing their conversation - oh no, what will Mom think, we're conditioned to wonder. But the film once again has no interest in traveling down that road and immediately moves along. But here's the moment I missed until last night...
There's overlapping conversation at this point and our eyes are supposed to be on the other side of the frame (which I edited out above) but Annella comes up behind Oliver right here and hands him some of the plant we saw her trimming in the previous shot and tells Oliver to "Here, smell this."
That minx! (Or as Elio puts it, "Funny witch.") And smell it he does. Of course he does. As if a woman this kind and generous would be offering him anything but sensorial ecstasy. It's a barely there moment but underlines my case about the generosity and kindness of the Perlmans and by extension the film - Annella and by extension Luca want you to smell, to taste, to enjoy.
We see it time and time again though - Annella doesn't have a sarcastic, unkind bone in her body. When Elio early on wonders if he might "grow to hate" Oliver she smacks her lips and says "No sweetheart," and late in the film when Oliver makes the joke about just going home to pack and come right back to live with them she takes it in with all seriousness, telling him he's "welcome," and you know she means it.
I know I have but I hope every single one of you have met a woman like Annella at least once in your life - someone whose goodness radiates off of them like sunshine; someone who only wants the people around her to smell and taste wonderful, beautiful things. Never forget that these are Annella's Trees and we're just grateful to have some time among them.
