paroxysm

movie posters: call me by your name (dir. luca guadagnino)

Four times Elio cried in front of (or while speaking to) someone | One time Elio cried alone

I can’t help but notice that in the first four photos there will be someone to hold him or to talk to him – in the case of the telephone booth, he’s speaking to his mom, asking him to come and pick him up; i.e to console him. In all the other photos he has Oliver, he has his Mom, he has his Dad – to sooth his pain, to hold him. To contain him. 

Which is why the last scene is significant – of him looking into the fireplace, crying by himself. I’m sure many analysts before me have pointed out that this is Elio’s time and realization that all his pain and sorrow – they have happened. But then he smiled – because in that pain and sorrow there was joy, and now it’s time to move on. 

The point is, he cried on his own. He has finally managed to sooth himself. He has finally managed to learn to contain himself, and that he’s a new man now. And then he smiled, and he looked at us – the audience. As if he knows that we are the ones he has shared his pain and sorrow with, throughout the two hours of the film, and he smiled. In doing that, he’s not only consoling himself, but he’s consoling us, the audience. As if he’s soothing us too. Containing us.

As if telling us that it’s okay. 

As if reassuring himself – and us – that it will be okay. 

movie posters: call me by your name (dir. luca guadagnino)

In your place, if there is pain, nurse it. And if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out. Don’t be brutal with it. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster, that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything - what a waste!