The enduring story of Elio, Oliver, and of course, the peach in Call Me By Your Name, remains unforgettable with a whiff of this fragrance.
“Call me by your name and I’ll call you by mine,” whispers the Oliver in a skin-prickling breath to Elio’s ear, as they are delicately intertwined under the wash of an ominous moonlight in the stillness of the Italian countryside. The penultimate post-coital exchange has seared itself to the consciousness of many an audience, latching on to the considered and deliberate choice of words as an oddly affectionate role-playing kink in the politics of sexual awakening. As the textured baritone of the ever-so confident American graduate student drapes itself to the quiet of the night, the fortress of self-preservation between him and the precocious, too-smart-for-his-age 17-year old prodigy becomes immediately non-existent as the pent up tension over the course of a few weeks is released much like an aggressive rushing stream of water. From this point forward in the incandescent and aching telling of Luca Guadagnino, all inhibitions are gone, just as soon as it was sealed with the playful, but most reassuring banter of the reversal of “Elio” and “Oliver.”
Cradled in a density that is riveting, Call Me By Your Name is a worthy adaptation of its written predecessor, where there exist paragraphs of untold, with every word uttered equally dependent on the unspoken. Tender in its provocation, this is what makes the film a profoundly compelling of a narrative that reveals itself to be more than the last time you interfaced with the exposition or well, the surprising possibility of a love that consumes and sets itself a precedent for the rest of one’s passionate travails. In fact, the eye-opening and soul-stirring unraveling of Elio and Oliver’s relationship catalyzes from a summer love to a seismic-shifting romance, where it buoys from piercing and knowing gazes to full-on romps and revelations that climaxes to that peace scene that has made such an arousing impression on all our sensibilities and memories.
In an effort to further heighten the heart-tugging and heart-wrenching emotional experience of Call Me By Your Name to an almost visceral sense, we are calling on the evocative allure of fragrances that in just a spritz sends us to the sprawling scene of coastal Italy in the 80s.
At this point, it is almost difficult to separate the name of Tom Ford from the enduring discussion of scents. As persistently provocative as he is with his fashion point-of-view, he is equally as deliciously daring when it comes to his fragrance formulations. Perhaps taken by the same almost erotic fascination to the peach in Andre Aciman’s gripping tale of a tender first love, Call Me By Your Name, Tom Ford releases an explicitly sweet and dangerously voluptuous Bitter Peach, an intoxicating swirl that enthralls with a burst of bright Pêche de Vigne (a thoroughly French favorite) and Sicilian Blood Orange Oil, before giving way to a lash of luscious Cardamom Oil. Full-bodied by nature, it builds to its climactic core of Heliotrope, Davana Oil, and a splash of Rum Absolute and Cognac Oil, finally coalescing to the chemistry of your skin with a rich and rambunctious Sandalwood Absolute, Tonka Bean Absolute, Patchouli Oil, and Vanilla. No peaches were harmed here, of course, just an eliciting of an explicit memory that latches and lingers into a sweet and sometimes, stinging reverie, in the same throes of unbridled attraction, unmatched romance, and unequivocal heartbreak of Elio and Oliver in the enduring coming-of-age telling where at one fleeting but crucial point, all that mattered in the world was that they had each other, even at the eventual behest of fate.
Cue: Mystery of Love by Sufjan Stevens.
