Call Me by Your Name

Luca Guadagnino’s 132 minute film is set in northern Italy in the summer of 1983 following seventeen year old Elio and Oliver, the graduate student who comes to assist his father. Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom shot it on 35mm with a single lens, which is more than a technical footnote. Because the focal length never changes, the director cannot cut to a close up to tell you what to feel; the actors are watched from the same distance throughout. Anyone expecting emotion to be steered is left alone with it for most of the running time. James Ivory spent about nine months on the screenplay and became the oldest winner of a competitive Academy Award. The budget was cut from twelve million dollars to about three and a half, the villa scenes were shot at the seventeenth century Villa Albergoni in Moscazzano, and Sufjan Stevens wrote songs for a feature soundtrack for the first time. The closing shot holds on one face for four minutes, camera placed inside the fireplace, Chalamet listening to the song on an earpiece; it took three takes. That shot is the climax, so leaving when the credits roll means missing the ending. Not for you if you want an external obstacle: there is no antagonist across 132 minutes; the calendar is the only deadline.