I feel like this is, uh, some dream world we're in, you know.
Yeah, it's so weird.
It's like our time together is just ours.
It's our own creation.
In my video on the Before Trilogy, I talked about the dreamlike atmosphere of Before Sunrise
that gave an otherworldly feel to Jesse and Celine’s brief romance in Vienna;
And what's so cool is that this whole evening, all our time together, shouldn't officially be happening.
Yeah, I know.
Maybe that's why this feels so otherworldly.
Over the years, there have been many films trying to capture that kind of romance but
none of them gave me quite that same feeling, until I saw Call Me By Your Name.
How you doing?
Nice to meet you, Elio.
Although this is obviously a very different film with its own set of influences as the Nerdwriter recently pointed out,
When you strip it down to its essence, it’s a similar story of two young people meeting each other,
sensing an attraction, falling in love and having to say goodbye.
But more importantly; it has the same dreamlike atmosphere that Before Sunrise had,
one that elevated the story even though I couldn’t really explain why.
It wasn’t until I compared the two films that I was able to articulate what elements
contribute to this feeling and what meaning it has to the story.
So today, let’s take a look at Before Sunrise and Call Me By Your Name
and explore the anatomy of the dreamlike romance.
So Listen, so here's the deal.
This is what we should do.
You should get off the train with me here in Vienna, and come check out the town.
The first thing that Before Sunrise and Call Me By Your Name have in common is that they
both set up a dream world; a sort of tangent universe or sacred space that is accessible
for a limited amount of time.
We only come here for Christmas and some other vacations.
This concept refers back to Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey;
in which the ordinary world is separated from a special one
that the hero has to venture into for transformation to take place.
In Before Sunrise; the dream world is the city of Vienna in which Jesse and Celine spend one night together.
In Call Me By Your Name; it is not any city in particular but rather it is defined by
a certain ambience simply referred to as “Somewhere in Northern Italy”
which Elio and Oliver explore over the course of a summer.
These places do not merely serve as empty scenery in the background;
blurred into a distant presence of lights as some films tend to do.
Instead, directors Richard Linklater and Luca Guadagnino avoid the overuse of close-up shots
and include the environment as an active presence within the frame,
making the dream worlds feel tactile and immersive.
But before we get deeper into the purpose of the dream worlds, it’s interesting to
observe the way the characters enter it, because contrary to many hero’s journeys in which
the main protagonist is forced or at least strongly drawn into the special world by external forces,
in both Before Sunrise and Call Me By Your Name, the entrance into the dream world is voluntary.
The characters are not reluctantly placed in each other’s presence,
but they mutually agree to enter respectively Vienna and Northern Italy together.
Let me get my bags.
This, I think, is important because the agreement to explore their dream worlds also signifies
the agreement to explore each other and establishes early on, both for the characters in the film
as well as for the audience watching them, that there’s a connection worth exploring.
I have an allergy Me too, maybe we have the same one
And this is ultimately what it’s all about; the ability of human beings to connect to
one another in a meaningful way.
In the process of achieving such a connection we can observe the silly rituals and awkward interactions.
but these exist mostly on the surface level and simply capturing those is
not enough to create a meaningful connection between characters.
In her review on the film Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong, Sheila O’Malley writes how
the dialogue, although charmingly delivered, remains on a ‘surface jokey level’
which is not enough to raise the stakes as she continues;
The essential element that such stories must achieve is the knowledge that the two characters need to be together.
An audience must ache for the characters to break through to deeper intimacy with one another.
And so it is important to get the initial awkwardness out of the way quickly.
Before Sunrise does this by its clever use of conversation.
Shortly after entering Vienna, Jesse proposes that they ask each other a few direct questions:
Alright I got an idea, are you ready?
It’s Q&A time.
We’ve known each other a little while now, we’re stuck together,
so we’re gonna ask each other a few direct questions.
Not only does this scene serve to learn some basic information and facts about the characters;
it also helps to quickly skip over the superficial stuff to make way for more meaningful conversations.
Call Me By Your Name I think handles this even more interestingly because the nature
of Elio and Oliver’s relation doesn’t allow for the traditional rituals of dating.
It means we can’t talk about those kinds of things, okay?
And by having to hide their feelings for each other for a large part of the film,
even the slightest revelation of affection becomes a significant expression of their connection.
Here we also find the purpose of the dream world, which is to support this quest for intimacy.
This is kind of weird.
Yeah, it’s weird, it’s a little awkward.
But it’s alright, right?
Yeah, this is great, this is great, let’s go to some places, look at your book.
We’re in Vienna, let’s go to some places.
On one level, it does this by giving the characters a reflection of their deeper feelings and
desires for them to interact with, thereby stimulating their exploration of each other.
Indeed, many encounters in the dream world; such as the old graveyard in Before Sunrise,
and the discovery of old statues of the male body in Call Me By Your Name,
directly play into the themes of the film and help the characters to become closer.
But what I think is perhaps the most important function of the dream world is that it mutes
the ordinary world and takes away any external barriers that might come between the characters.
This is especially unusual in Call Me By Your Name as the relation between two people of
the same gender is often defined by the external obstacles they have to face,
something which director Luca Guadagnino wanted to avoid;
The idea that there is a contrast against the lovers is something that is so artificial, you know?
That there has to be somebody who is gonna contrast them like, and then the love will triumph.
Simply put; the dream worlds are supportive of love; both in significant ways such as
Elio’s father supporting his son; as well as in many tiny moments like the bartender
giving Jesse and Celine a bottle of wine even though they have no money to pay for it,
and the old lady giving Elio and Oliver a glass of water when they are thirsty.
Moments like these may seem inconsequential, but again; they all contribute to a world
that is uncynical and uncorrupted; one that wants the characters to be together.
This brings us to the last point which is the importance of having characters who are caring and romantic.
Both Before Sunrise and Call Me By Your Name are about the first love between two young people,
which often goes hand in hand with these traits as Luca Guadagnino explains;
The allure of the first love is such of something still uncorrupted by a cultural cynicism I would say.
Obviously; having characters who are romantics makes us more likely to root for them to be together,
because if they don’t care about love, then why should we?
But I also believe it has deeper implications, which is where get into the why of it all;
the reason stories such as these are so meaningful.
As the sequels of Before Sunrise show us; it is only when we grow older that we can
really put these experiences into perspective and realize how special they are;
I guess when you’re young you just believe there’ll be many people who you’ll connect with,
later in life you realize it only happens a few times
And you can screw it up, you know, misconnect.
It suggests that these dreamlike romances are about much more than just relationships
and the question of whether or not two people end up together;
they’re also about facing our mortality.
As Dan Jardine puts it in his review of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset;
These films ask us to consider the very nature and purpose of our existence in a fragmentary, superficial and transient universe.
And so the limited time in the dream is as much a lesson in love as it is in loss.
I don’t want you to go
I might have given up on the whole idea of romantic love.
That I might have put it to bed, that day when you weren't there.
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.
The dream world is entered in search for something that transcends the material reality,
for a connection that defies our physical limitations and lets us become one,
if only for a brief moment.
Call me by your name and I’ll call you by mine.
The original screenplay for Call Me By Your Name had an unnamed narrator who I think explains it best;
They had become each other that summer.
And long after every forked road in life had done its work this would always be true.
Their lives scarcely touched in those weeks together, but they had crossed to the other side,
where time stops and heaven reaches down to earth and gives us that ration of what is from birth divinely ours.
They could look the other way and speak of everything but, they would always know.
They had found the stars.
And this is given once only.