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The Dreamers (NC-17 Edition) Customer Reviews (76 - 78 of 78 Reviews)

Le Arc de Triomph, la Saint-Tropez, et la Tour Eiffel!
Imagine you're living in a large city, smack in the middle of a political uprising, all while trapped in a small apartment with two other people who you hardly know (and vice versa), in a land & culture completely oblivious to you. That's the general plotline of "The Dreamers", whose story can be somewhat described as one that's frenzied on the outside and cool as a cucumber on the inside. A college student (Michael Pitt) in Paris on a study-abroad program, meets two youthful, free-spirited Europeans (Eva Green, Louis Garrel), and one of the subject's highly educated, stern parents (Robin Renucci, Anna Chancellor), who are unsure about the intellectual prowess and sociability of this foreign post-adolescent lad. When this stranger in a strange land passes the test with the senior members (with adequate results), he takes to their son & his girlfriend immediately, and the three young charges take to the mean streets of Paris, sharing a small apartment and tackling intense subject matter such as war, peace, the sexual revolution, as well as the revolt taking place outside the confines of their own apartment. With this "nouveau" French Revolution, the three inquisitive, skeptical young adults seem to enjoy being trapped in their surroundings, which makes the plot more intriguing and even more climactic with each progressing moment. The exchanging pleasantries and tensions forming within the group are similarly metamorphosized and intensely insightful as in "The Breakfast Club", where the viewer gets to know each of the characters, their personal lives, loves, faults, even their various skepticisms about authoritative views of the very universe in which they live. With the revolution increasingly building to maddening proportions, rather than focusing on the potential bloodshed occurring outside their door, our three upstarts accept the situation for what it is, and go on with their lives, overanalyzing and living in their own personal world and the pleasures of sex, politics and self-glorification. Bernardo Bertolucci, who directed this dramatic, semi-autobiographical account, leaves everything intact, without having the viewer going around in circles trying to figure everything out, and doesn't insult his or her intelligence in the process. Everything is both tantalizing and appetizing here, although I wouldn't recommend the cuisine! This otherwise satisfying, digestible epicurian delight is currently being served in grand-sized portions (as well as proportions) at your local art-house cinema. Don't be caught at the end of the line, or you'll definitely be out to lunch, both mentally and permenantly!

FOR ALL ITS DAZZLE, IT DELIVERS
Set against the vibrant background of Paris in the Spring of 1968, The Dreamers tells the story of three young film students, their lives, and, surprise surprise, their dreams.

Despite the tumult and ferment taking-place on the streets, the movie's narrative centres around the complicated relationships between brother Theo (Louis Garrel), sister Isabelle (Eva Green) and their newfound American friend Matthew (Michael Pitt). When their English mother (Anna Chancellor) and rich poet father (Robin Renucci) leave them in charge of their comfortable middle-class home, the siblings invite Matthew to stay with them.

Sensing a kindred spirit, they involve him in their re-enactments of classic film scripts, and increasingly bizarre mind games. Cocooned in their own little world, they are for the most part oblivious to the social upheaval going-on around them. Police sirens wail outside, whilst inside the self-styled cultural revolutionaries mouth slogans like they've been plucked from the script of a really cool film.

The Dreamers blends several distinctive Bertolucci trademarks. The unabashed censor-baiting of Last Tango in Paris meets the sumptuous cinematography seen in Besieged. The sole defining characteristic of "The Dreamers" though is not the political subplots or the cinephile mindset, but the sexual content. Indeed, it is one of the few NC-17 rated films to see a sizable release in the last decade, Bertolucci is no stranger to sexually volatile subjects, and Dreamers returns the director to his blunt focus on the human body. Trouble is, as deeply erotic as the film is, is isn't hot at all.

For all its flashy camerawork, often slick scripting and some fine performances, especially Garrel's, it somehow manages to disappoint, because the viewer is left wondering what the point of the exercise is. Maybe the lack of a point is the point, but I really can't be bothered trying to work it out.

Perhaps an adventurous rental if you don't mind ambiguous semierotic takes from an Italian moviemaker.

To be of the world or just an extra
Bertolucci's revolutionary film takes place in the tumultous summer of 1968 in which a young American, Matthew (Michael Pitt) has come to Paris to study French. He becames a cinephile and a frequent patron of the Cinemateque Francais, the breeding ground for the New Wave movement. Shortly after the firing of Langlois, he meets fellow cinephiles Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Cassel) and scores an invitation to dinner.

That's how it begins, but this movie isn't linear and it cannot be deciphered merely by the order of events. Quite frankly, I was amazed by Fox Searchlight releasing what may be one of the most revolutionary and sexually progressive films of recent years. In the streets, the young and old found their revolutionary voices in 1968 and fought to institute governmental changes, but inside this chic apartment another revolution is taking place as well only this one involves fewer persons.

Matthew is clearly enamored of Isabelle and Theo (though this latter relationship isn't as developed as in "The Holy Innocents", which I found took away from the storyline) but he is not transfixed by them. He realizes that though they observe the world, they purposely keep themselves outside of it. Theo's father correctly observes early in the movie that to understand the world and change it, you have to become part of it. This is a lesson Matthew is constantly aware of and tries to pass on to his new friends. The first inkling of how grounded he is in this reality comes with the Zippo scene (my favorite) in which his casual observation of how a simple lighter fits into every possible place. Life allows us to fit into many possible spaces as we constantly change and constantly search for the ideal spot, but the cosmic lesson in it is that we will fit into them and consequently, will fit ideally into the one we pick out. We must allow ourselves to inhabit the spaces and become part of them in order to test the waters all the while and we do this by leaving the comfort of our original spot and become part of the overall world.

The sexual relationship between Isabelle and Matthew was passionate, realistic and completely believable. We live in very hypocritical times where nudity has become more taboo than violence and it was a pleasure to see young people making love with all of the intimate gestures that take place between lovers. It obviously takes a great director to pique our cinematic memories and remind us that it takes two nude bodies to make love. The nude scenes between the brother and sister were a bit troublesome to the audience I saw this movie with, but the incestual nature of their relationship in the book has been erased. To me, they just seemed dangerously, asphixiatingly bound to each other, the nudity being just part of said obsession.

All three actors do a fine job, but it takes a brave director to end a film with a police action about to take place to the sounds of Edith Piaf's "Je Ne Regrette Rien". Bertolucci understands his young protagonists and knows the many errors they will continue to commit before they pick and choose what is right and what is wrong because he has been there himself. And he regrets nothing. We should all be so lucky.

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