Like Hephaistion who died Alexander's lover

[sovay]

I seem to have celebrated Saint Patrick's Day with Haitian food and Italian film. Works for me.

(rushthatspeaks and I got takeout from Pikliz—fried goat with plantains and their levitatingly spicy jerk chicken—and caught the late show of James Ivory and Luca Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name (2017) at the Somerville. I am making a note to write about this film, because I just really liked it: it's queer, it's Jewish, it has just the right amount of classical allusions, a simultaneously precise and dreamy sense of place and time and the same attention to the details of a loving and supportive family and an awkward and exhilarating summer of first love, avoiding clichés except for the ones that got that way from being true. I am fascinated by the differences between it and Maurice (1987), the generational shifts in queer film in Ivory's own lifetime and career. I think I owe other movies first.)

Comments

[kore]

Oh, I hadn't thought at all of comparing it with Maurice, I don't know why. That's nice. Also Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, maybe.

[sovay]

Oh, I hadn't thought at all of comparing it with Maurice, I don't know why. That's nice.

It brackets really well, although I still look forward to whatever James Ivory does next.

Also Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, maybe.

I still haven't read that, despite the title! I don't dislike May Sarton; she wrote The Fur Person (1957). I think I was just disappointed at an early age by the apparent lack of actual mermaids.

[kore]

Oh I meant the movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0378393/ I saw it a long, long time ago, but I remember liking it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgBa6bSPvAA (slightly odd trailer)

[sovay]

I saw it a long, long time ago, but I remember liking it.

I didn't know it was a film! Thanks.

[asakiyume]

I'm glad it's good! It's the type of film you want very much to be good. It's wandering in treacherous territory, not so much as a queer romance but because of involving an age and experience difference and being set abroad and all that: I'm glad it avoids clichés. I was in a bookstore where someone was buying the book; the clerk said the book was even better. Her words: "it has even more layers."

"Levitatingly" is definitely the sort of approbation I look for when someone's describing spicy food. Sounds delicious.

[sovay]

It's wandering in treacherous territory, not so much as a queer romance but because of involving an age and experience difference and being set abroad and all that: I'm glad it avoids clichés.

If you're concerned about either of those factors, the Italian setting is the home of the viewpoint character—the American grad student is the exotic one from away—and the age difference is handled not glossingly but realistically, in that the mid-twenties grad student does not make a move until he's determined that the seventeen-year-old is not just calf-love crushing on him but flirting with awareness and intent. He has to be old enough to know what he's doing and he is. He's old enough for his best-friendship with a girl his own age to flash over into sex. He's not old enough to know how to handle two overlapping relationships gracefully, but even people who aren't seventeen are bad at that. (And it doesn't come out to tragedy either way.)

"Levitatingly" is definitely the sort of approbation I look for when someone's describing spicy food. Sounds delicious.

I have adopted spatch's criterion for spicy food: does it make you see through space and time. Answer here: yes.

[asakiyume]

I wasn't worried for myself! Or for anyone, really--I was just aware that when you tell a story with those elements, problems can come up, and I'm glad to hear that in this case, they don't.

[sovay]

Or for anyone, really--I was just aware that when you tell a story with those elements, problems can come up, and I'm glad to hear that in this case, they don't.

They really don't. It was just lovely. I do want to write about it.

[selkie]

Maurice! Formative queer film with floppy boyhair!

I am glad you got your reasonably quiet day.

[sovay]

Maurice! Formative queer film with floppy boyhair!

I read Maurice at Brandeis. I didn't see the movie until a couple of years ago. (And still haven't written about it, and should.) I did not realize Rupert Graves had ever been so beautiful. It was great!

I am glad you got your reasonably quiet day.

Thank you.

[aurumcalendula]

The food sounds awesome!

Maurice! (this reminds me I need to rewatch it)

[sovay]

The food sounds awesome!

It was! I am enjoying so much having food this good and this affordable literally around the corner from me.

Maurice! (this reminds me I need to rewatch it)

I think I'm just going to need to write about it. I watched it two years ago and loved it and then the election happened and my concentration went pfffffft. Besides, then I can point back to it when I write about Call Me by Your Name.

[cyphomandra]

I liked this too and really want to read the book (I also drove home from the movie to the soundtrack of the Psychedelic Furs). I liked that you could construct Oliver’s own story and have it be true but different from Eliot’s. I don’t remember Maurice well enough to contrast it - the book made more of an impression on me than the film - but it would be interesting to see what you think,

[sovay]

(I also drove home from the movie to the soundtrack of the Psychedelic Furs).

I didn't have a car and had to wait till I got home! "Love My Way" has been on and off in my head ever since.

I liked that you could construct Oliver’s own story and have it be true but different from Eliot’s.

Yes!

I don’t remember Maurice well enough to contrast it - the book made more of an impression on me than the film - but it would be interesting to see what you think

I'm thinking I'll write about both of them. I need more time.

(I loved Maurice; I don't feel, having seen Call Me by Your Name, that it now falls short of some queer ideal. But they assume different things about their characters and audiences and while I don't know enough about queer cinema to say necessarily what caused the changes, their existence still really interests me.)

[cyphomandra]

And I’ve just discovered that the audiobook of Call Me By Your Name is read by Arme Hammer, which is making me reconsider my fondness for text...