Thursday, September 28, 2017

A Summer, A Lifetime of Love

Being in love is never easy. There are always two outcomes: either you end up together forever until death or someone falls out of love and the relationship ends. And even with the former option- considering natural causes- someone has to die first and leave the other with a lifetime of memories to reflect on. Yeah, super morbid! But on the other hand, no matter how many times you go through it, love will always give you that unbound, visceral, ecstatic feeling of being truly alive. Nothing- except maybe skydiving- will ever come close to that intense rush of empowering emotions, that ephemeral immortality when your stars align with those of someone else. You sign up for whatever comes your way because you know you can handle anything. Sometimes the attachment comes when you least expect it. But it's there.

Forbidden love is the absolute worst. Because then you just want it more and deep down, locked inside the dungeons of your mind, you hear that trapped prisoner screaming out, "Don't do it! The end is near!" But the hope inside of you pushes him into the corner to shut him up and moves forward, pursuing your image of happiness that eventually morphs and deteriorates as you didn't think it could. All the while you kept it a secret because there was no one else you could tell. It lived in your heart alone and in every single place that your love endured. It implanted a memory, a feeling into each place so that when you return, a piece of your heart would forever stay there too, to keep the memory of your love alive.

Yet, (in the corniest line to date referencing the greatest of modern love hits), the heart wants what it wants because it knows you're the one that I want. (I warned you.) So when you first meet glances across the room, you feel the attraction pulse between you. And when you look back and find them taking a second glance too, you don't worry that your heart skipping a beat may be a medical emergency. Your first words, your first touch, the flirting, the overthinking, the deliberate avoiding hoping it'll lead to them missing you, and eventually your first kiss; courting always makes love worth it. In the end, it 100% is. Love is the act of being human and it is what connects us all.

Before I deconstruct everything about love, I should probably introduce that all of these thoughts and plenty more are thanks to my recent (less than 20 minutes ago) finishing of André Aciman's Call Me By Your Name. The fact that this is the first book review on my film blog carries its own weight, but this all comes in antici-------pation of the imminent release of the feature film directed by Luca Guadagnino. His previous works (I Am Love, A Bigger Splash) suggest a raw, deeply intimate look into his characters and their human struggles. Which, in part, is exactly what CMBYN is all about.

An American academic, Oliver, is invited to stay with an Italian family in their Mediterranean villa for six weeks. The son, Elio, and Oliver (played by Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer, respectively) create this unparalleled bond that makes the summer skip by in a heartbeat and the book's final page come with yet another torrent of tears. After I read A Little Life, I wasn't sure I had a single more tear to give. But for better or worse, CMBYN showed that I had even more to shed. It will be interesting to see how Guadagnino translates Aciman's fluid prose and Elio's borderline obsessive (don't worry, I've been there plenty of times) POV.


In short, these two friends, lovers create such a transcendent bond, they consider themselves extensions of each other. In effect, 'Call me by your name' so that we can be infinitely close to one another always. I don't want to give too much away before the film's release, but if you've read the book you know how impactful it can be. I can only hope for the same emotional roller coaster in the film. So pack your tissues, tie your heart strings up tight, bring along your memories of your first love, your summer love, and stay tuned for my review after the film! (Wish me luck that I can sneak into the Q&A with Luca, Armie, Timothée, and Michael after my volunteer shift!)


Later!

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