The Dreamers (1993)

nTitle: The Dreamers (2003)

nDirector: Bernardo Bertolucci

nCast: Michael Pitt, Eva Green, Louis Garrel

nReview:

nBernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers is a film filled withnnostalgia for the late 60’s, a time of chaos and anarchy. The time was 1968,nand Francenwas undergoing all kinds of revolutions. The workers were angry, the studentsnwere angry, people wanted to earn more, work less. Students wanted education tonbe more affordable. And film buffs wanted to watch their movies! That’s right;nthis was also a cultural revolution! You see the government decided they needednto close down theaters because films, as I’m sure most film buffs and criticsnunderstand, is a powerful medium with which to transmit ideas, almost toonpowerful in some peoples eyes. Film transmits ideas faster than anything,nfaster then reading a book or a pamphlet. In other words: film would make thenmasses think; a dangerous thing in the eyes of any form of government. Peoplengetting smart? People expressing themselves? Artists, cinephiles and poetsngathering? Talking politics? Not a good idea! So the French government decidednto close down a major theater called ‘Cinematheque Francais’; this was annaction that was met by uproar from the film buff community, which at the timenwas growing strong.

nI found this so interesting because actually, a similarnsituation occurred in my country a couple of years ago. There was this theaternin San Juan (the capital of Puerto Rico) called ‘Filmoteca Nacional de PuertonRico’ and it was this small theater with two screens with room for little morenthan 150 people per screen. These screens where used by local indie filmmakersn(such as myself) to play their independent films in. The place was thriving,npeople where coming to see the movies they made themselves. It was a theaternfor the people and by the people. Money was being made, I know I made a bit.nBut making money was beside the point, what I was loving about the place wasnthat people were coming to see my movies! And enjoying them! Other indienfilmmakers were doing the same and so, a local underground film movement wasnbeing born. The government got a whiff of it and what happens? They shut downnthe place for no reason whatsoever. Supposedly, the air conditioning systemncouldn’t be fixed. Which of course was total bull, what they did was shut downna venue where people were expressing themselves through film. The real problemnwas that most of the films being made were anti-government!

nThe Dreamers takes place under similar circumstances, but onna much more violent scale. Film buffs where angry! Filmmakers went out on thenstreet and protested against their voices being muted. What happened duringn1968 in Francenwas a real cultural revolution! Of course this revolution was way bigger then censoringnfilmmakers, but it’s a small example of the repression that was going on in thencountry. And people don’t like to be repressed; we all enjoy our freedoms don’tnwe? So this is where The Dreamers begins, right smack in the middle of all thisnchaos. Matthew, is the naive and kind of innocent American teenager who goes to France to study; he’s a a true filmnbuff, and so he ends up meeting Isabelle and Theo two French revolutionary filmnbuffs themselves. That day when they first meet, they immediately hit it off! Theyntalk about movies, take strolls down Parisnand that very night become inseparable friends. One thing leads to another andnTheo and Isabella end up inviting Matthew to move in with them. A love trianglenensues.

nSex was a huge part of the revolution back in those days,nsame as it was in the Unitedn States. It’s as if having crazy sexual exploitsnwas something that no one could take away from them so they were going to donit. In a way, it was the ultimate revolution. Matthew says it at one point, henmentions that violence is something that the police does; it’s not what theyndo. What they do is kiss and make out, as much as they can. And so, ThenDreamers got the dreaded NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association ofnAmerica because of its explicit nudity and sexual situations; in other words,neverybody goes full frontal on this one. If you can’t take that sort of thing,nthen don’t bother because this film is very graphic in this department, thencamera gets right in there, right in the middle of things. Characters walknaround naked in their apartment through a large part of the film. The threenmain characters reject what’s happening in their country and instead choose tonlock themselves in their apartment and make out day and night. So anyways, I’mnEuropean at heart, so nudity in a film is really not a big thing for me, innfact, it kind of natural, as Sigmund Freud used to say we are all sexualncreatures and well, sex is a part of life, there’s no point in denying it. Yetnthe film does address the fact that certain sexual behaviors are wrong. Theonand Isabelle are too close for comfort and Matthew points it out to them. Thenthreesome uses their sexual adventures to ignore the realities of the harshnworld, but what the film tries to tell us is that there’s no point in denyingnthese realities, sooner or later they come crashing into our lives.

nThe film also functions as a huge love letter to cinema, andnI say ‘cinema’ because that’s how films are referred to in France. No onensays “movie”, its either ‘cinema’ or ‘films’. Bertolucci constantly quotesnother filmmakers in this film; in fact, he quotes Godard quite a lot. ButnBertolucci doesn’t excuse himself for this; he says he is quoting Godard and there’snnothing wrong with that because Godard himself quoted other filmmakers andnwriters himself on his films. So this is a film about film; the three mainncharacters are true film buffs in the best sense of the word. They go to thentheater regularly, they analyze films, and they have discussions on who is funniernBuster Keaton or Charles Chaplin? They quote films, reenact films; they evennplay games where you have to guess which film the quote is from. I loved thisnabout The Dreamers because I get them, because I myself love film as much asnthese crazy dudes, and I, like them, also went through my own revolution. Funnynhow similar the revolution portrayed on this film was to the one that occurrednhere in Puerto Rico in 2010 and in many partsnof the world for that matter.

nSame as the characters on The Dreamers, when cops werenhitting students and spraying pepper spray on their faces for no good reason, we asked ourselves the very same questionsnthat Matthew, Theo and Isabelle ask themselves. If we care so much about thenrepression; then why aren’t we out there? Should we take up Molotov bombs andnattack? Should we, should we, should we? Will a revolt change anything? Or willnthe powers that be get their way anyways in the end? It seems this scenario hasnbeen played to death across time. The documentary images that Bertoluccinincludes in the film of cops hitting students and protesters are so similar tonthose I saw and lived through a few years ago in my own country, that it almostnfeels uncanny. Same as in Francenof 1968, the revolution fizzled away, yet the people where victorious in somenrespects, the revolution wasn’t a total loss. The ‘Cinematheque Francais’nopened it’s doors yet again, and film buffs got to watch their films oncenagain. The Dreamers is a revolutionary film in every sense of the word,ncultural, social and sexual. Bertolucci made a beautiful, shocking yet poignantnfilm. Very relevant to our times even though it takes place in 1968.

nRating: 5 out of 5