Here's Beppe Severgnini writing in the NYT about his hometown, Crema, and how the Palermo-born director of Call Me by Your Name was able to see it with new eyes and capture it beautifully.
The movie tells a tender love story, and the two main characters are convincing (Elio’s family less so). But the real star is Crema. Mr. Guadagnino discovered a dreamlike quality in my hometown — in the cobbled squares, the narrow alleys, the stunning summer light, the unexpected shade. And in the surrounding countryside: the winding lanes, the spring water, the deep green of the old trees and the luscious gardens of the mansions, rich in charm and poor in maintenance. And the young women swaying on their bicycles, fading into the horizon.
I grew up among all this. I’ve traveled the world and now work in Milan, but I’ve always lived here, where I was born — just 100 yards from the palazzo where Mr. Guadagnino set up home. The house where I grew up and still live is down the road. My wife’s family home is across the street. The piazza where the two main characters have their life-changing one-to-one is right under my office window. I can see the site now, as I’m writing.
Mr. Guadagnino and I have never met. But I congratulate him. He has seen Crema with a newcomer’s fresh eye, and he succeeds in passing it on to his audience. A few years ago, the director Paolo Sorrentino, from Naples, did the same with Rome, and the result, “The Great Beauty,” went on to win the Oscar for best foreign-language film in 2014. No Roman director could have done it. You need to be surprised to surprise others.
And now, thanks to this movie, many foreigners will discover that Italy is not one gigantic Tuscany, a soft drug peddled in predictable packages, such as hills in the sunset, olive groves, lemon trees and white wine. Crema has none of that. Our land is flat; we grow wheat and corn, not olives; and our wine comes in bottles from Piedmont or Veneto. In Crema you will not bump into an American on every street corner. In Cortona, you do. Sorry, Frances Mayes — there are too many foreigners under the Tuscan sun.
Crema offers the right mix of mild unpredictability and sensory reassurance. Every spring and summer we have friends stay, and they are all enchanted. You may think I’m being too romantic, or even biased. But I do believe that a town like ours represents the stunning, ordinary charm of Italy better than those world-famous cities. Rome, Venice and Florence are unique and breathtaking, but overwhelming. Crema takes you by the hand and slowly teaches you what Italy is about: its old houses and waterways, the deep green and lighthearted conversation, the ripe fruit (the sexual potential of peaches and apricots is fully explored in Mr. Guadagnino’s movie).
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/opinion/crema-italy-call-me.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront
EDIT TO ADD: the previous poster and I were posting simultaneously!
