A Beautiful Love Story Normally Swept Under The Rug

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME: A Beautiful Love Story Normally Swept Under the Rug

Elio sits beside Oliver at the foot of the bed. Both are gauging each other’s move, as their innermost desires swirl in the inside. Who goes first, who touches first---that’s the question.

Then Elio sweetly rests his head on Oliver’s shoulder and abruptly bit him. Elio stood up and slowly paced around the minimal space of the room---might be thinking, discerning. Then Elio walked up slowly to Oliver and buried his head on his chest, Oliver starts to hug him and caress him. They hugged very tight as if pouring out every longing they’ve secreted from each other for the past days. Then Oliver breaks the hug and seized Elio’s face and asked, “Can I kiss you?”.

Sensual and

At his age, he starts to flirt with girls and starts to explore his own sexual whims. Until Elio met Oliver, a 24-year old American---his dad’s academic intern. Contrary to Elio who is coy and introvert, Oliver is handsome, charming and confident---and not to mention blond, blue-eyed, sun-kissed and tall---as Elio’s mother dubs him, “la muvi star.” In the few instances that the two met---sensual tension can be felt between them—at least for Elio who seem to get confused. As days went by, Elio tried to fathom his emotions and actual reactions amid Oliver’s presence: he’s silently angry when Oliver doesn’t join dinner; he hates how Oliver casually leaves a conversation with a “Later”---not knowing that deep inside a hidden Elio fancied Oliver. Then one day, after an afternoon swim in the lake, Elio and Oliver kissed and their romance

It is very authentic and pragmatic in its cinematic projection of how a young boy starts to develop his feelings to his same sex.

An abrupt yet deep stare of Elio to Oliver; a mere picking of fruits or splashing of water in the pool---all connotes that profound longing of a person to another person. Whether you’re gay, bisexual or straight, the movie will make you feel all over again the tangible and raw sensations of feeling love for the first time---that feeling that will keep you wide awake at night; that feeling that will make you move clockwise above your bed; and that feeling that will make you discover who you really are.

Indeed the film shows several sexual gay scenes that a lot of people might flinch about, but it does open a new level of understanding that these affections of kissing, hugging and sex are not just shared unilaterally among straight people, but rather these are universal forms of affection and loving that are equally celebrated in gay