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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Friday, January 25, 2019

entry arrow11:00 PM | Elio and Oliver, A Year Later



When Call Me By Your Name came out in 2017, I watched it three times in a row, and then three more after that. Tonight, I watched Luca Guadagnino's adaptation of Andre Aciman's novel again after more than a year -- and it feels like I'm seeing the film in a new light, even seeing scenes I don't even remember seeing before. This time around, the film is also so much more languid, more tender, more tentative, but also surer of its depiction of despair. The music by Sufjan Stevens, I realize even more now, is just exactly right: the lush and lilt of its themes capture the exact kurot to the stomach that falling in love -- and falling into heartbreak -- brings. That last tearful scene, extended to the brink of longing and despair. That scene at the station as the train departs. That quiet scene in the car with the mother, who knew a brush of hand against hair was enough to bring comfort, and understanding. That midnight meeting at the balcony when we hear the refrains of "Visions of Gideon" for the first time. So much of this is real, and it brings me back so easily to that untethered, reckless time when I was young and falling in love for the first time like it was the last time I could breathe.



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