What does the phrase 'Call Me by Your Name' mean?

I recently watched the movie Call Me by Your Name, which is an adaptation of André Aciman’s 2007 novel. Set in 1983 in northern Italy, the movie chronicles the romantic relationship between a 17-year-old, Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet), and Oliver (Armie Hammer), a 24-year-old graduate-student assistant to Elio's father (Michael Stuhlbarg), an archaeology professor. During a summer in Italy, while Oliver is visiting with Elio's family, the two fall in love.

Call Me by Your Name is an erotic film. It's not just about lust and sex, but also love, which is bigger and more frightening.

The chemistry between Hammer and Chalamet, and their performances, sell the relationship completely. The spark between them takes a while to fan into a flame, especially since Elio has taken up with a French girl named Marzia (Esther Garrel) who’s in town for the summer. 

Oliver and Elio’s relationship starts out combative, with Elio navigating whatever’s happening inside of him by feigning disinterest, playing coy, and watching Oliver from afar while taunting him up close. 

Eventually, they become friends. But one evening his mother reads from a 16th-century French romance, in which a knight yearning for a princess with whom he’s formed friendship wonders, "Is it better to speak or to die?', and Elio decides he has to speak.

The name of the film, and a pivotal moment in it, comes from Oliver pleading in a whisper to Elio, after they’ve finally slept together, for him to 'call me by your name, and I’ll call you by mine.'

Is it better to speak or die?

In one of the scenes, the professor Perlman(Michael Stuhlbarg) and Annella (Amira Casar) and Elio (Timothée Chalamet) snuggle on the couch while Annella translates from the Heptaméron, the 16th-century collection of fables by Marguerite de Navarre.

"A handsome young knight is madly in love with a princess. And she too is in love with him. Though she seems not to be entirely aware of it. Despite the friendship that blossoms between them or perhaps because of that very friendship, the young knight finds himself so humbled and speechless that he's totally unable to bring up the subject of his love. Till one day he asks the princess point blank, is it better to speak or to die?," Annella translates.

It is originally coined from a 16th-century French romance novel. Ask yourself, is it better to risk rejection by pouring your heart out and confessing your feelings, or would 'dying' be easier and far less painful?

Today, it may sound a little dramatic. However, dropping dead might be a more convenient option for Elio than genuinely expressing his feelings to Oliver.

Because both Oliver and Elio are initially unwilling to admit their feelings, we must rely on every nonverbal gesture to infer any form of love development between them. The only thing stopping Elio and Oliver is Elio and Oliver. Their fears of rejection and vulnerability become the stumbling block to their happily ever after.

What does the phrase Call Me by Your Name mean?

The phrase "call me by your name" simply refers to the act of loving someone so intensely, passionately, and emphatically that you and that other become one. Elio is Oliver, and Oliver is Elio. Beautiful, isn't it?

The concept of addressing a lover or companion by their own name is also known as "alter idem: (Latin) another self," because couples are often said to reflect each other, having similar tastes, thinking alike, and even looking alike.

In Greek mythology, humans were created as four-armed, four-legged, two-faced creatures, but split apart by Zeus and condemned to spend life searching for their other halves. 

Whether one searches for a female or male half has to do with the nature of your original being, and there are various means through which two halves who find each other might live in companionship.

When one of them meets with his other half (the actual half of himself), whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and would not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment.

This is the highest form of love. The people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire from one another. This is, in other words, an origin story for what we moderns might call soulmates, and it hums through 'Call Me by Your Name' like electricity.

Why did Elio cry in the Peach scene?

In the movie, Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet) gorges a peach in order to masturbate with it. He fingers the peach, removes the pit, and masturbates with it, finishing inside of it. He leaves the peach, contents and all, on his desk and falls asleep. The turning point occurs when Oliver stumbles across Elio and learns what he's done with the bruised fruit.

In André Aciman's novel 'Call Me By Your Name,' Oliver eats the fruit loaded with Elio's sperms after Elio has completed pleasuring himself with peach. For some, it may be an eww moment, but for others, it may be an awwdorable moment. If you like this scene, get yourself a partner who will eat the whole peach.

In the movie, Oliver says, "I want every part of you, If you die, I want part of you to stay with me in my system."

But in the book, Oliver said, "I believe with every cell in my body that every cell in yours must not, must never, die, and if it does have to die, let it die inside my body."

After Oliver finishes the peach and Elio has a good cry, he tells Elio,  “Whatever happens between us, Elio, I just want you to know. Don’t ever say you didn’t know.”

Elio sobs and cries since he has no other way to express his gratitude. Basically, what breaks Elio is the fact that Oliver cares for him so much that he's willing to eat the peach.  In the film, however, Oliver simply makes a gesture to eat the apple before Elio intervenes and starts crying.

When Elio remembers the moment many years later, he says, "I had never been able to admit to myself how happy Oliver had made me the day he’d swallowed my peach. Of course, it had moved me, but it had flattered me as well, as though his gesture had said, I believe with every cell in my body that every cell in yours must not, must never, die, and if it does have to die, let it die inside my body."

Peaches are a symbol of immortality and longevity in Chinese mythology, and they appear frequently in Chinese art and stories.

One such story describes an emperor who fell in love with a male courtesan and kept their relationship hidden from his kingdom. The courtesan chose a particularly sweet peach one day and offered the rest to the emperor after one bite. The emperor was so taken with the gesture that he confessed his love for him publicly. Since then, in ancient Chinese culture and beyond, the love between two men has been referred to as 'the sharing of the peach.'

Why does Elio wants to see Oliver’s poop?

There's a scene at the conclusion of their romance where they're sharing a hotel room in Rome, and Elio says he wants to see Oliver's poop.

"Our bodies won’t have secrets now," Elio tells him.

Then Elio demands that Oliver see his own poop, but Oliver outdoes him. He kisses him, touches his stomach, and stands there watching the entire thing happen. "I didn't want any secrets, screens, or barriers between us," he explained.

It’s a bizarre-yet-beautiful scene, precisely because Elio wants to get to a place where even the most private, mundane bodily functions become acts of intimacy. That’s what the peach signifies too. 

Oliver’s signature blue shirt

Billowy is the word given by Elio to describe Oliver’s signature blue shirt on their first encounter. It symbolizes Elio’s desire to remember the time he spent with Oliver and to give it continued meaning in his life after Oliver leaves. Elio requests to keep the shirt for himself as a reminder of what he once had. 

After the 'peach sequence', when Elio woke up in the morning he saw Oliver's shirt lying on his bed. There was a cute note attached to the shirt, which says, 'For Oliver, from Elio'. 

The shirt was a parting gift from Oliver to Elio, but Oliver mentioned his name in Elio's name and vice-versa because, 'call me by your name, and I’ll call you by mine.'

As Elio and Oliver prepare to say their final goodbyes, we expect to hear Oliver's trademark 'later' as he hugs Elio in a long and emotionally devastating hug, but we don't get it. He knew there would be no 'later,' and he didn't want to depart on a promise he couldn't keep.

In this scene, Elio can be seen wearing the exact shirt that Oliver gave to him.

-K Himaanshu Shuklaa..