The Sound of Silence In Call Me By Your Name
“I miss you.” Pause. “Me too.” Pause. “Very much.”
In the final phone call, Elio picks up, happily surprised to hear that wonderful old voice again, but his enthusiasm is brought to a halt when Oliver announces he is getting married.
“I remember everything.”
Those are the last words spoken by Oliver before the scene cuts before we transition to Elio, sitting alone by the fireplace.
This final moment is part of what makes the movie linger with the viewer long after its ending, not because of what it says but because of what it doesn’t. We don’t know what Oliver refers to or what Elio feels, forcing us to turn to our heartrending imaginations to attempt to fill in the blanks. Because their love is forbidden, so is their speech. It is that silence that creates the intimacy in Call Me By Your Name and precisely what drives its intrigue. We become engrossed in desperately attempting to decipher what the characters actually feel; we lose ourselves in sentiment and emotion, turning the film into something that never truly ends.
It is not only Elio and Oliver's lack of speech that is jarring but the other sounds, like birds chirping or fire crackling, that accentuate this silence. This is somehow more painful than pure silence, as we are left to listen to these ambient noises that immerse us further into our contemplative states. In another scene, when an Italian couple argues at the dinner table, we hear nothing but gibberish that means little to us, forcing us to focus on the fact that neither Elio nor Oliver is saying a word. Their bodies sit side-by-side with tense postures and glancing eyes, communicating things louder than anything that could be heard, even without the couple arguing.
Modern-day life is filled with language, perhaps too much. We text back without thinking; feelings are made into good Instagram stories; relationships are given definitions before the parties involved even understand how they feel. There is no ambiguity, no uncertainty, no room for guessing; everything must be stated or even written down and publicized for the world to see. The film completely contrasts that vocality and relies on this modern obsession with knowing to introduce us to another kind of reality where we don’t know, obliging us to turn to theories and fantasies that all lead to the same dead end.
Seeing the romantic desire in every aspect but not sound drives us crazy. The viewer becomes consumed with trying to figure out what Elio is thinking as he watches Oliver dancing at the club. His eyes suggest he is starting to like Oliver, maybe even falling in love, but we cannot know for certain because it is not his words we hear but the lyrics of “Lady, Lady, Lady” that fill our ears. Because of this, we conjure possibilities, trying to fill in the blanks, ranging from the elaborate scenarios of Elio’s profound love to the simple possibility that he is merely zoned out. Our minds race as we watch and can do nothing but feel for them, yet the answer is never handed to us, forcing us to live in a continual state of uncertainty—an unsolved puzzle, an unfinished landscape.
But it also brings up another interesting angle in considering whether language is the best means for knowledge. Do the things we say always allow someone to truly know us, or are there ambiguities in the words we speak as well? I would say so, because even the words spoken in Call Me By Your Name are riddled with mystery. “You know what I mean” is how Elio supposedly confesses his feelings to Oliver, but what exactly does he confess here? He assumes that Oliver knows about his love, not from his language but from all the other cues he gives him: the way his eyes linger on him, the way he flinches at his touch, the way he mimics him by wearing a badge of honor, the way he brings him to his favorite spot. The question his mother poses is, “Is it better to speak or to die?” and Elio resolves this by doing neither; he shows. I believe this is the central message to the audience: that we should not say everything we feel, because the greatest love is not spoken, not defined or announced; it is expressed through small actions like a lingering glance across the room, brushing past them in a doorway, sharing a favorite food, or laughing at the same small joke no one else noticed. The film leaves us with the idea that love has the most power when it is partially unknown, because it is within those spaces of not knowing that deeper feelings prevail and fill the silence. We can’t know everything about another person, and we shouldn’t know everything. Because the best thing is the mystery of love.