Being a film buff isn't a prerequisite for enjoying Bernardo Bertolucci's new movie The Dreamers, but it certainly couldn't hurt.
The Dreamers is Bertolucci's gushing love letter to the cinema, and virtually every frame of it oozes with movie-love. It's other things too, a curiously claustrophobic little chamber piece about being young and being creative and not quite knowing what to do with your life, and having lots and lots of sex.
The movie is a veritable ode to sex, in fact, although in a plainly poeticized but confrontational way that seems to deliberately recall the director's still-notorious-after-all-these-years Last Tango in Paris. The Dreamers even boasts that rarest of ratings, the NC-17, not unlike that much publicized X that Last Tango once upon a time wore like a badge of honor.
There's not exactly much of a plot here, but what there is seems equal parts Last Tango, Jean Cocteau's Les Enfants Terribles and, presumably, Bertolucci's own memories. From Last Tango, we get an aimless American in Paris hooking up with a beautiful local for a series of increasingly intense sexual encounters. The beautiful local is one half of an unnaturally entwined brother-sister act left to their own devices in a parent-free household, just like in Les Enfants Terribles. As in that much-admired Cocteau film, the twins' Parisian digs become a sort of psychosexual wonderland, and, as in Last Tango, the setting becomes both a prison and a site of liberation.
The actors are all young and beautiful and seem chosen as much for how good they look without clothes as for their ability to emote. The French siblings, Theo and Isabelle, are a sulky and enigmatic pair played by Louis Garrel and Eva Green (latest in a long line of those heavily breasted waif types favored by Bertolucci), while Michael Pitt plays the wide-eyed young American, Matthew.
All three of our heroes are movie-mad, which explains how they meet and, at least initially, what keeps them together. The film takes place during the turbulent spring of 1968, with Matthew and Isabelle first encountering one another at a demonstration for Henri Langlois, who had just been fired from his job as director of the legendary Cinemateque Francaise. The Langlois affair served as a catalyst for the cultural and political revolutions that were about to shake Paris (and the world), and this event becomes the start and end point for Bertolucci's film.
Isabelle and Theo and Matthew instantly recognize each other as kindred spirits, insatiable habitues of Langlois' temple of cinema, where they sit in the front rows staring up rapturously at the screen, as if receiving communion. A young Bertolucci spent many an hour here, too, just like the kids in The Dreamers, and these portions of the movie have not just the ring of truth, but of beauty.
Politics and pop art and everything else exploding in the '60s hover about the edges of The Dreamers, but the essence of the movie is all about the cinema — and sex. Matthew, Isabelle and Theo meet and then almost immediately retreat to the insular world of the twins' apartment, where they begin to play out a series of games that get them deeper and deeper into uncharted territory. At first, the games are simply playful and all about the movies, but soon evolve into something plainly obsessive and darkly erotic.
The film earns its NC-17 with a few close-ups of male and female genitalia, but we never really get a clear sense of the boundaries the characters are supposed to be smashing, or to what end. Despite the flaunting of a weenie or two, The Dreamers isn't nearly as transgressive or as potent as Last Tango was back in the day. It doesn't help that the young actors, while lovely to look at, don't even begin to convey the sort of intensity or mystery managed by Brando.
The sex is what people will be talking about and the main reason they'll come to see The Dreamers, but those aspects of the film are almost certain to disappoint. The erotic parlor games in Bertolluci's film don't quite get debauched or deep enough, and once they've run their course, the movie doesn't know what to do.
On the other hand, The Dreamers has the glorious music of The 400 Blows and Breathless, the images of Godard and Rivette, Sam Fuller and Freaks, Garbo and Nick Ray. In a nutshell, this is a film that's guilty of thematic overreaching and underachievement, but it is nothing less than remarkable in its ability to communicate a passion for movies that, at least for this viewer, is absolutely thrilling. So what's not to love?
The Biggest Little Film Festival in Florida
With over 21,000 tickets sold and more than 100 filmmakers and celebrity guests in attendance last year, the Florida Film Festival has taken on a special status that belies its pleasantly casual atmosphere. The 13th annual edition of this increasingly popular Orlando-based festival takes place from March 5-14, offering an impressive slate of films, special events, free seminars and glamorous parties. Previous Florida Film Festivals have attracted the likes of Oliver Stone, Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, Gena Rowlands, Steve Buscemi, Jason Lee and Roger Corman, so expect a few interesting guests to show up too.
The festival opens on Friday, March 5, with actor-turned-director Campbell Scott's Off the Map, the curious tale of an 11-year-old boy coping with a family that includes a mother given to gardening in the nude and a father who just can't stop crying. Another actor turned director with a film in the festival is Stephen Fry, whose Bright Young Things has been praised as a witty look at the decadent, privileged youth of 1930s England.
One of the most hotly anticipated features at this year's festival is Lars Von Trier's latest avant-epic, Dogville, which has been stirring up all kinds of controversy for everything from an alleged anti-American bias to the sadistic on-and-off-screen treatment of star Nicole Kidman. Not as controversial but probably just as eagerly awaited is the multi-award-winning Goodbye, Lenin, a much-admired satire about an East German woman who sleeps through the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, and wakes up unaware of being in a brave new world.
Other films worth a look include Young Adam, a reportedly gritty and extraordinarily sexual thriller starring Tilda Swinton and Ewan McGregor (naked again), and the ever-versatile Michael Winterbottom's cinematic essay about a chilling near-future, Code 46.
International cinema abounds at this year's Florida Film Festival, with some of our highest recommendations including Noi, a brilliantly deadpan comedy about teenage angst in Iceland, and The Story of the Weeping Camel, a minimalist slice of life about a family of Mongolian camel herders. One of the biggest international crowd-pleasers is sure to be Italian director Gabriele Muccino's Remember Me, an elaborately constructed family drama that's just a breath away from soap opera, but is ultimately just too smart and beautifully crafted to be considered as such.
Fans of fringe cinema and the downright bizarre will be in cult film heaven this year, with a Midnight Movie selection that includes crazed animator Bill Plympton's latest, Hair High. Perhaps even more exciting is the festival's presentation of a brand new, restored, uncut 35mm print of Lucio Fulci's rarely seen and ultra-gory Zombi 2 (released in the U.S. under the title Zombie).
As if that weren't enough, the festival offers all sorts of free seminars, including forums on independent filmmaking (March 13, 11 a.m.), film distribution (March 11, 11:30 a.m.), film criticism (March 6, 10:30 a.m.), and cutting-edge technologies (March 12, 11 a.m.). The biggest draw in this series is sure to be Monster writer-director Patty Jenkins and "special guests" discussing the ups and downs of producing a major motion picture in Florida (March 14, 11 a.m.), so be sure to get there early.
All films and events take place at the Enzian Theatre, 1300 S. Orlando Ave., Maitland, and at Regal Winter Park Village 20, 510 N. Orlando Ave. For more information, call 407-644-6579 or visit the festival's website at www.floridafilmfestival.com
Contact Film Critic Lance Goldenberg at 813-248-8888, ext. 157, or lance.goldenberg@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Mar 4-10, 2004.