The visual of memory - Call Me By Your Name (2018)
I cherish my first viewing of this movie in eighth grade, the opening credits of the images of statues with the warm yellow handwritten names and the incessantly soft piano backing the visuals, I was immediately transposed to Crema in the 80s - I could escape and wear Elio’s skin for the next 2 hours and 12 minutes.
Building an atmosphere is something I’ve craved in general - without an atmosphere, the task at hand doesn’t feel fun enough to pursue. Arranging my room according to my mood that day makes the literature essay worth completing. Soundtracking my studies with Bill Evans allows me to reimagine my room as a Brooklyn brownstone (the kind I’ve dreamt of occupying) - we are always blocking and crafting scenes without realising it.
Yet Call me by your name doesn’t allow me to decide, its beautifully controlled atmosphere seduces me. The light grainy picture narrates the movie as though it was scribbled on the back of a tourist postcard, the warmth lurking behind Oliver reminds us of that one friend we couldn’t make permanent - it is all so unbelievably sensory. The film’s palette creates a visceral desire. The peachy tones, the ice-cold sea foam waters and the scratchy pencil on music sheets - it’s light, entrancing and feels like a distant memory of freedom, a time when you were so utterly hypnotised by a single entity. Its visual is the embodiment of focus
Every viewing of this film doesn’t fail to invoke a bodily reaction from me - a few goosebumps, teary eyes and a blood rush to my cheeks. All because it is so beautifully aligned, the perfection, alignment or tranquillity I chase every day is so accurately translated in the film, creating a sort of adoring incapacitation within me
It’s the eternal relationship between memory and visual that one can’t knock which call me by your name so beautifully honours and centres its narrative around
The film reminds you of what it is to dream and what it means to be alive, but just for a fleeting second - making it so hauntingly seductive, cruel and hard to forget
