After 30 weeks of tears both sad and joyful, through the seasons of Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer and Awards, Call Me By Your Name will screen at the Light House Cinema for the final time this evening.
It has been an incredible run for the film, which last weekend became the longest running ever to screen at the Smithfield cinema. Throughout the cinema’s history, films such as the documentary Bill Cunningham New York, Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty and Manchester By The Sea have had extended runs, but none have matched Luca Guadagnino’s lush and lovely depiction of young romance blooming in the beauty of the Italian countryside, which has run for 30 consecutive weeks on one screen or another since opening in late October of last year. To mark the achievement tonight, May 31st at 8.40pm, there will be bottles of Prosecco and glasses of Bellini (no giggling you) for viewers, letting them celebrate one of the best films of 2017 and send it off in style.
Rising star Timothée Chalamet shines as Elio, the introspective, international, sometimes arrogant young prodigy living with his parents in Northern Italy. Gradually, he falls for Oliver, the outgoing and very American grad student (played by Armie Hammer), who is working with Elio’s father. Through a long and lazy summer, their relationship blossoms, as they experience late evening meals, bike through the country and discover new and um…unusual ways to enjoy peaches. Though the music of Sufjan Stevens compliments the films 80s soundtrack perfectly, truly fellow indie electropop stars Passion Pit are there in spirit. From the chemistry of the leads, the beautiful cinematography, an ASMR score and Michael Stuhlbarg’s stunning monologue towards the close, few films in recent years can match Call Me By Your Name‘s depth of quality.
Charlene Lyndon, film programmer for the Light House and Volta, spoke to Film In Dublin about what makes people come to see Call Me By Your Name again and again:
Almost 6,500 people have come to see it, and many of them (myself included) have seen it a number of time. They even kept coming after the film became available on blu-ray.
There’s something about certain films that creates a little cult around them. People want to see them again and again. People seem to enjoy building a community around them. It’s impossible to predict what will become one of these films. Our long-running films have been extremely diverse. Call Me Your Name is a film about loving people – in the many, many way you can love people. There is little conflict in the film, just some dramatic tension. It’s a pleasure to watch people fall in love and a pleasure to watch the reactions of those around them – intelligent, kind, tolerant human beings. Maybe there’s not enough of that in cinema.
Also, Call Me By Your Name is a very sensual film. The visual imagery is lush and full of nature, there’s all that delicious food, the gorgeous wine, the fruit (!), and the beautiful languid pace where we spend so much time with beautiful people just lying around and swimming and dancing and having fun. It’s a world we’d all be happy to step into for two hours.
And two hours of that soundtrack playing loud in a cinema is pretty much worth the price of your ticket!
Paul Donnelly, Festival Manager of the GAZE LGBT Film Festival, also had words of praise for the film on this landmark occasion:
Who isn’t taken straight (excuse the pun) back to the pangs of their first love with the music of Sufjan Stevens in Call Me By Your Names, James Ivory’s gentle adaption of André Aciman’s novel- that packs an emotional punch without ever being overly sentimental – it conjures up all the pain of soon to be unrequited first loves, teenage crushes, the sticky fumblings of the heart and that sweet remembrance of that person who awakened your sexuality & brought you into your own – Luca Guadagnino’s film is a peach of a statement not just to gay love but true love – feelings that cross all boundaries and labels.
Tickets for tonight’s screening are still available as of now from the Light House.
So as the Light House prepares to love Call Me By Your Name for the last time, just watch, this is how they’ll say goodbye to the film when the time comes…
