Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your
Name on Tuesday obtained four Oscar nominations - best film,
best actor for Timothée Chalamet, best adapted screenplay by
James Ivory from André Aciman's novel, and best original song
(Sufjan Stevens - Mistery of love).
The film, a tale of male homosexual desire in an idyllic
northern Italian setting, has generated a lot of Oscar talk.
The film is the story of a first love set in 1983, with much
of it taking place at a house in Crema over the languid rhythm
of long summer days.
Like the 2007 book on which the film is based, the story
focuses on an affair between a teen and a 20-year-old graduate
student.
Timothée Chalamet plays, Elio, 17, a talented
Italian-American musician who lives with his father Perlman,
played by Michael Stuhlbarg, and his mother Annella (Amira
Casar), a cultured family in which everyone is fluent in
English, French, Italian and, for Annella, German.
The family is also Jewish, or "Jews of discretion", as the
protagonist calls them - in a metaphor for ensconced sexuality.
Every year, Elio's father, a professor of Greek and Roman
culture, invites a graduate student to spend the summer with the
family to help him with research and this year the guest is
Oliver, played by Armie Hammer.
Both Elio and Oliver have romantic liaisons with local young
women while their interest for each other evolves into a
relationship - a story primarily seen through Elio's point of
view.
Chalamet and Armie Hammer were up for Golden Globes but lost
out.
The film is up against The Shape of Water, Three Billboards
Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Dunkirk, The Darkest Hour, The Post,
Lady Bird, Get Out and Phantom Thread.
Italy is also in the running for an Oscar with Alessandra
Querzola, who garnered a nomination for best production design
with Blade Runner 2049.
Palermo-born Guadagnigno, 46, is known for Io sono l'amore (I
Am Love, 2009) and A Bigger Splash (2015).
The director is currently working on a remake of Dario
Argento's 1977 cult horror film Suspiria with a star-studded
cast including Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson, Mia Goth, Chloe
Grace Moretz, Lutz Ebersdorf and Jessica Harper.
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