Because my time is so constrained and I can only write on things that take up a couple of hours, I’ve been feeling I’ve been avoiding the truly interesting, complex or problematic films in this blog, and dealing only with what can be dealt with in the time I have. I’m glad I’m doing this podcast with Mike because at least it allows me touch on them conversationally and not hope to wait for time that never arrives like with Alain Guiraudie’s great L’étranger du lac.
This is my second time seeing Call Me By Your Name and Mike’s first. We touch on issues that have been troubling some friends: class, culture, language, sexuality, the absence of the AIDS pandemic, the peach scene. My second viewing does bring up formal flaws in the film that I hadn’t noticed before. Armie Hamer’s performance comes off less well upon second viewing. Chamelet continues to seem great. It seems a lesser film on second viewing though, to the film’s great credit, I remained just as involved and just as moved. One of the criticisms made is that the film seems to be addressed to heterosexuals. If this is indeed the case, and I don’t think it is, it signally failed with Mike who watched it with restrained fury throughout, as he so eloquently elaborates upon throughout the podcast.
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With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.