Bertolucci’s latest is another triumph of sumptuous sensuality and worldly wisdom wrapped up in a package of violence and social rebellion.
Set in 1968 Paris amidst the student riots, “Dreamers” tells the story of three teenagers coming together for a brief time on their way to adulthood. Bertolucci has managed to capture the beauty and other-worldly excitement of those times and combine it with some of the most sensuous cinematography on the screen today (hence the NC-17 rating).
As one would expect, the filming takes you right into the riots, the garbage dumpsters and the bedrooms of the film’s “beautiful people.”
The star of the movie is Michael Pitt playing Matthew, a somewhat serious language student looking for adventure in Rome. Louis Garrel and Eva Green play Theo and Isabelle, twins who are battling for their own independence from their over sheltering mother and father.
As he did in “The Last Emperor,” Bertolucci takes a momentous time in history, a time of great political change, and presents it in tandem with the great personal change of the heroes of the story. A great story tells of great changes, and “Dreamers” presents the coming of age of Theo and Isabelle; their near death and eventual flying from the nest amid the chaos and danger of shouting crowds and Molotov cocktails. A rich period in history, and a rich period of development in all of our lives.
1968 was a pretty good year for riots in America, too, not the least of which was the Chicago riots during the Democratic convention, where I was attending college. Maybe it is partially because of that connection to our own “student riots,” my memory of those hot, humid days, those afternoon thunder showers and the incredibly fertile time it was for new thought on all fronts; but this movie had a tremendous impact on me. Like Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor,” you just don’t leave the theatre the same as when you came in.
Matthew is all alone and looking for friends when Isabelle beckons to him from the iron gate to which she has chained herself in protest. When he asks her why she is chained to the gate, she slips out of the chains and laughs at her joke. But she finds it harder to slip out the chains of her childhood. She is afraid, as is her brother Theo. Afraid of breaking away. They are, as Theo says, “Siamese twins, joined at the head.” Adding to the ethereal nature of their lives, the two frequently withdraw into their own fantasy world of movie trivia. The film switches back and forth between the make-believe worlds of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Fred Astaire and Greta Garbo and the living fantasy of the three teenagers, isolated in their apartment with the streets outside in turmoil.
The two ask trivial questions about old American movies and then force the other to “forfeit” if they can’t answer. The forfeit is humiliation, a form of self-torture that the two act out against each other to prod themselves towards some illusive realization. Soon Matthew is drawn into the game. But instead of a victim, he proves to be the key to freedom. And the riots in the streets, instead of destroying what is around them, deliver the trio from self-destruction.
Mathew, Isabelle and Theo
You will recognize Matthew as half of the eminently despicable and psychotic teenage murder team in “Murder by Numbers,” where he does battle with Sandra Bullock and Ben Chaplin. It is hard to take someone so beautiful, seriously. But having seen him in “Numbers” helps. It is to Bertolucci’s and Pitt’s credits that they make a man out of Michael. He is at once accepted and rejected by the twins. They allow him to be a part of their most intimate moments, and yet make it clear that they will never part for anyone. The result is an intense love-hate relationship that Bertolucci blasts onto the screen.
The backdrop of the political riots, with their ambivalence--the hatred and fighting for the love of a cause--makes a perfect environment for the tortuous cutting of the ties that bind: that final, painful thrust onto the next stage.
Michael’s parents are played by Eva Green and Robin Renucci, a couple who have problems of their own. In their own children’s words “they only had sex once and that was to have us.” The father is a poet and social critic, although he refuses to sign his children’s latest petition. They accuse him of being a poseur and a disgrace to his art. Both of the parents reflect the pain of the establishment and the reluctance to let their children go their own ways.
The movie soundtrack borrows heavily from the seminal American rock and role sounds of the 1960s, including Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. The pieces are well chosen and reflect the feeling of the times, and have been done in a slow, dreamy style that reflects the ethereal feel of the film. If you are at all familiar with that era, you may find yourself having a flashback to Haight-Ashbury, Woodstock and Altamont: the love, the dirt and the death.
If you haven’t yet seen Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor” or “Last Tango in Paris,” they would be good videos to check out while you are waiting for “Dreamers” to arrive in your city. The NC-17 rating is for real, the sexuality is very explicit and, like “Last Tango,” will be too much for some (several members of the audience walked out of the NYC theatre where I saw “Dreamers”).
It is interesting to note that when “Last Tango” was released in the early 1970s, it received a rating almost unheard-of for main-stream pictures: the dreaded “X” rating, the mark of death. “Tango’s” X rating has since been down-graded to an NC-17, which, in and of itself, is interesting (an edited “R” version is also available). But when the movie “City of God” shows an eleven year old torturing an eight year old by shooting him in the hand and receives only an R rating, what do these ratings mean?
If you aren’t in the mood for the violence and over the top sensuality, try Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor.” It is simply a sweet and beautiful movie about a man caught in changing times and should not be missed by anyone. Don’t look for “Dreamers” to be a smash hit in the bible belt, but it is, nonetheless, a yeasty and voluptuous piece of work by the master of mondo cane.
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