Why does Elio look at the camera at the end

just for fun. no wrong or right answer. or maybe there is, i haven't seen Luca talk about it yet in an interview.

here's mine:

i relate it to my first romantic relationship. i was also 17 at that time.

i had a girlfriend in hs but i didn't feel anything at all, i thought she's pretty and all, i even had a crush on her, but there really was no sexual tension or emotional attachment. i was so uncomfortable the whole time we we're together.

so i wen't to college and one night at choir practice, out of the blue, i met this guy, my soon to be first love.

to cut the story short, when things ended between us (partially my fault), i went home that day, and for the first time ever, i felt it. my very first heartache. i really thought my whole world was gonna crash. never felt such intense of a pain and longing before. it almost felt like a literal stabbing in the chest.

this was also the moment everything made perfect sense.

so...

Elio breaking the fourth wall at the end of the movie, to me, means he notices us, the audience, looking at him. We, the "audience", we are the strangers in his world, we make up society.

this movie was set in the 80s wherein being gay wasn't widely accepted yet and probably most gay men in their adulthood, had no other choice but to live the life expected of them by society. graduate, get engaged, get married to a woman, and have kids.

throughout the movie, we felt like there was no stopping these two. there weren't really any forces trying to break them apart. well, not until the phone call. after Elio, learned about Oliver's engagement.

he then heads over to the fireplace. he is trying to process everything that just happened. the pain of the first heartache. and then he looks up. he sees us, watching him the whole time like a fly on the wall.

he realizes for the first time the complexities of all of this. of being in love with another man.

he recognizes that though he has loving parents, society will always be there to remind him this won't be easy.

[culturehound]

Over the course of Call Me By Your Name, the camerawork devotes itself to languorous shots of the Tuscan countryside. There are apricot groves at the villa of Elio’s family, cobbles in the nearby town. Often, the film will dwell on the stillness of the water in local ponds, moments before a body crashes into it. As Elio and his father’s assistant Oliver fall in love, there are countless quiet empty looks and long stares. As Elio says, summer in Italy consists mainly of waiting for it to be over.

This lingering camera’s most powerful moment is in the film’s ending. When, indeed, the summer ends, Oliver must leave Italy — and Elio — to return home to America. Months later, winter has arrived. Elio wanders inside covered in snow, into a warm house. The phone rings. Oliver is calling to tell Elio and his parents that he’s been engaged. There is of course congratulations, but also a tone of concern from Elio’s parents, who have known, sagely, for some time now of Elio and Oliver’s affair, and so leave the two to have their private conversation. (Lucky you, to have parents like these, Oliver intimates to Elio. His own parents surely would have had him committed.)

There’s a pause, and the two profess that they miss each other. Elio starts calling Oliver by his name, and Oliver does the same. “Elio,” Elio whispers repeatedly, and Oliver speaks “Oliver” back.

Afterwards, Elio wanders into the living room and settles down in front of the fireplace, staring simultaneously into it and the camera. It’s as if the audience is positioned directly inside the flames, whose light is reflected on Elio’s face. Music by Sufjan Stevens begins to play. Steadily, impeccably, Elio’s eyes gather in tears. His cheeks color, and his mouth marks the barest idea of a frown. Out of focus in the background, behind Elio, we can see his mother bustling about in the kitchen.

It’s difficult to express how provoking this long hold feels in situ, in the theater. It’s almost aggressive, for such a sad moment. Partially it’s that you feel locked in place by Elio’s eyes, but also the temerity in looking so long, it’s like an abrupt confrontation, the more so as the look continues. What is it Elio is seeing in us? Is it rude, unkind that we also look so eagerly back?

At the same time, it feels as if Elio isn’t concerned at all with us. The camera accentuates the glimmer in Elio’s pupils, so that it’s as if there’s an entire pageant inside his eyes. Though Elio doesn’t say anything, it’s like we’re entirely seeing his thoughts before us, albeit up to our imagination exactly what he’s thinking. He must be thinking about Oliver. How so? What else? If we can label it so simply, is Elio sad, or is he beyond that?

Meanwhile, end credits have started playing, laid on the screen over this scene with Elio. The audience is chirping. (Sometimes, a buzz isn’t just metaphor, but an actual, wordless sound.) What do we do now? How are we supposed to feel about this? In a minor way, it’s a fourth-wall break, an explicit designation of this movie as a love story that’s now concluding. At a certain point, the audience actually becomes uncomfortable. Should we get up and go? (In my theater, I heard at least one person feebly start clapping, before falling quiet.) Why aren’t the lights up yet?

Gradually, Elio’s frown inverts itself into a smile, and you can tell he’s reaching some kind of inner dialectic. Where his tears were subtle before, now they’re clearly pooled around his eyes. Elio is melting before us.

The last proceeding in the movie is that Elio’s mother yells his name once, twice, before he notices and turns his head around. All this time, his mother has been doing her own thing, preparing dinner. Life goes on. Is this what we’re meant to take away? That, despite this tremendous experience with Oliver, Elio is still young and there will be other loves, other lives? Or that, in the scope of things, all experience is private, and impossible to communicate to even those close to you? Maybe that’s what love is: the feeling of being alone even when with another person. But then the screen turns black, the credits start scrolling for real, and we’re left by ourselves to figure out what Elio was thinking.

What happened at the end of Call Me By Your Name movie?

Why is Elio crying at the end?

Why did Oliver leave Elio?