_Call Me By Your Name_ is the fifth film by Luca
Guadagnino that I've seen. All five are overlong
and overrated, and three contain coming-of-age,
sexual awakening elements (_Melissa P._, _A Bigger
Splash_, _Call Me by Your Name_). I'd rate _Call Me_
dead last. At least in the other two there is
something at risk (quite a lot actually, life
and-death stuff). Here the Chalamat character
has an affair with the older Hammer character,
and it is OK with everyone -- the former's
girlfriend, even parents. The characters are
tame and boring, and have no edge to them. There
are poems, novels, music sprinkled into the movie
to try to convince us the characters are "artistic,"
but compare this boring bunch with those in, say,
Terence Davies' recent _Benediction_, where the
gay characters are truly inspired and live by
their art -- and are not very nice. as such people
tend to be. This film, set in sunny Italy, also
reminds me of Bertolucci's _Stealing Beauty_. That
much maligned movie is not my favorite, but the
camera work (lots of movement) is so much better
and more graceful; if Liv Tyler is not spectacular
either, at least the supporting cast (Jeremy Irons,
Sinead Cusack, and a very young Rachel Weisz) is
\unforgettable. But the worst thing about _Call Me_
is the self-congratulatory conversation at the very
end. I guess it flatters the middle-class audience
who identify with the characters, but it is absolutely
tone-death.

-------------------------------------------------------

I have now streamed Gaudagnino's _Suspira_ twice,
without ever paying full attention to be fair, but
the moral of the story still escapes me. Is it (1)
modern dance is invented by the devil, as most
husbands and boyfriends dragged to these events
have suspected all along? (2) The old feed on the
young and need to be "displaced" with extreme
prejudice (the unspoken ideology of the "woke" crowd)?
(3) Women are a horrible bunch who indulge in
internecine warfare (also insinuated in _Titane_)?
The film is set in the 70s, and allusions about
the Meinhof-Baader terrorism and Nazi legacy are
sprinkled about, as unconvincingly as the name-dropping
of artists in _Call Me By Your Name_. The "witches"
try to shame the psychologist about not doing more
to find his wife during WWII, and Dakota Johnson's
character erases his memory as an act of nerct,
but the relation between the witches and the bloody
German legacy is never made clear. They just seem
to hide in their Academy and shun society. With a
plot this confused, it is pointless to talk about
the performances, which is a shame because the film
brings together German New Wave mainstays like Angela
Winker and Ingrid Craven. (Oh, and Tilda Swinton has
three roles, including the male psychologist under
heavy make-up -- a factoid with no impact on the
film and is of azero interest to anyone except those
committed to inflating her already oversized ego.)

There is one scene which is truly terrifying, with
the dance upstairs tearing apart the body of a young
woman down below. Other than that, the horror is
so small-time. You can avoid it just by not going
to modern dances. Dario Argento, who directed the
original, knew better. There are genuinely sick,
malevolent, all-powerful, shadowy creatures in
Argento's films, bent on destroying society, our
planet, stealing into our homes and controlling our
bodies, generally seeking to turn the clock back to
atavistic depravity. For such creatures really
exist in the real world. In the U.S., we call them
rogue Supreme Court Justices.

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