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The Dreamers (NC-17 Edition) Customer Reviews (61 - 63 of 78 Reviews)

Bold, brave and inquisitive
Bertolucci displays with this unnecessarily controversial movie more bravery than many other directors half his age. Anyone who is young should see it to observe the contradictions that youth's idealism brings upon the three protagonists. Anyone who is older should watch it to remember the bravery of times gone by, to remember a time when many of us still believed protests could change the world and to acknowledge the validity of both youth's panache and experience's fountain of knowledge.

Visually alluring but unoriginal
This film is certainly easy on the eye -- all of the principals are quite beautiful and it's hard to get bored watching gorgeous Eva Green and Louis Garrel cavort half naked for a couple hours. But take that away and all you really have is a pretty stereotypical film about a couple of incestuous French siblings who, in true French tradition, spend a lot of energy devising ways to tantalize and shock their naive American friend. Add to that the fact that the young woman is a pretty sick puppy, and you get a very derivative "homage" to "Jules and Jim" (the French classic about a beautiful and emotionally complex woman whose indecision between two men ultimately destroys all three). The political context is pretty much window dressing, and the film doesn't delve too deeply into the moral and intellectual underpinnings which finally divide the trio. Of more interest is the sub-theme of film-within-film; the trio is obsessed with classic films and their actions are informed by various films, segments of which are shown. This is an interesting device as far as it goes, but in the end Bertolucci drops the ball as to its significance. And to me the failure to include any reference to "Jules and Jim" was dishonest. This is sadly not the Bertolucci of "The Conformist" -- one of my all-time favorites -- but even a mediocre Bertolucci film is of some interest.

A Film That Plays Like Chamber Music
THE DREAMERS has certainly polarized viewers: those who are devoted Bertolucci fans welcome this very unique work and those who object to viewing explicit youthful sensual exploration loathe it. Taken in the vein of Bertolucci's output, it is more a youthful version of his LAST TANGO IN PARIS and as such it is a rather quiet, elegiac exploration of the needs and desires of the disenfranchised youth of the 1960s. The love triangle here is played out by brother/sister Theo/Isabelle ( Louis Garrel and Eva Green) and the American student Matthew (Michael Pitt, in a role that is surprisingly well acted). How they interact, mixing their obsession with old movies with their need to act out their feelings in the 'self-imposed' repression of the isolation of a Parisian apartment when outside the real world is undergoing the Protest Period of the 1960s' disdain for the Vietnam War, etc, etc, is the crux of the ambiguous story. There is no real beginning or ending to this piece, just a glowing string of theme and variations that in Bertolucci's imaginative hands becomes moody chamber music. This is not a film for the squeamish, but it is an elegant cinematic achievement that leaves a strangely beautiful afterglow.

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