I think I've gotten too accustomed to action/adventure superhero movies -- I'm used to "film as comic book" rather than "film as art form." Because this film is definitely a work of art, and of a very high caliber.
Random thoughts, in no particular order:
Armie Hammer wears the role of Oliver so naturally that you forget he's an actor. That's as it should be, but I, being the hardened veteran of viewing for review that I am, had really forgotten what it's like to see an actor doing what actors are supposed to be doing: making me believe he's that character on the screen.
It's Timothée Chalamet's film. Elio, the seventeen-year-old who falls in love with Oliver, is the focus, and Chalamet delivers -- he's alternately self-assured, awkward, angry, and very much in love in the way only a teenager can be.
It's a poem. So much happens in between and around the words and the action that there's no other way to describe it. It builds a kind of resonance that doesn't really hit home until the final scene, which runs into the closing titles, and is nothing more than Elio's face as he's staring into the fire. Wham.
It's a beautifully, subtly constructed film. The magic is in the details on this one (well, give or take the truly stellar performances), and director Luca Guadagnino put it together in the only way it could work.
It didn't really hit me until I was on my way home, and all of a sudden I was sitting on the bus thinking "Holy shit!" And I can tell I really, really liked it because I'm totally hyper right now.
I'll be seeing it again, and I suspect that the minute it's out on DVD, it will enter my collection.
Go see it.
4 comments:
This is good to hear. Thanks for sharing your eloquent, persuasive recommendation.
Thanks for the kind words.
I remember after seeing Brokeback Mountain, I just walked around for about an hour, not thinking, really, just sort of digesting what I had seen. This one had a similar effect -- it's like a time bomb -- it hits you as you're leaving the theater. Interestingly enough, it's the final scene in both films that has the major impact. I just remember riding home on the bus, the errands I was going to run after the movie completely forgotten, thinking "Holy shit." I don't even really remember the bus ride.
The performances by both Hammer and Chalamet are amazing -- complex, subtle, as poetic as the film itself even though solidly grounded in reality, and right on target.
And if I say any more I'm going to start spouting spoilers, so I'll stop there.
I do want to see this film; I hope to find it among the hurly-burly of the cinemaxiplex here in Miami.
Your mention of "Brokeback Mountain" reminded me of what I posted about that film back in 2006.
http://barkbarkwoofwoof.com/2006/01/brokeback-mountain-neither-gay-nor-cowboy/
I hope this film touches me as deeply as "Brokeback" did.
By all means, find it. I waited for a month for it to finally get to Chicago; fortunately, it's at a theater that's easy to get to.
Interesting take on the movie -- your view sort of parallels mine, in some ways.
I wrote a lot on Brokeback Mountain at the time -- my review at Green Man Review is here: http://thegreenmanreview.com/wordpress1/film-3/ang-lees-brokeback-mountain/ Looking at it again, I'm somewhat surprised that it was so coherent -- the movie left me somewhat unsettled, to put it mildly. (And Call Me By Your Name had somewhat the same effect, but coming from a different direction.) And if you do a search on this blog for the title, you'll find a whole series of posts from when I was moving to Blogspot from my old location.
I'm hoping to get a review of Call Me By Your Name finished for this Sunday's edition of GMR, if you're interested in reading my reaction.
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