The Dreamers Release Date: February 6, 2004 Starring: Michael Pitt, Eva Green, Louis Garrell Directed by: Bernardo Bertolucci
PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 2/6/04)
In a recent PREMIERE interview, Bernardo Bertolucci discussed how this, his latest film, reflected the passion a generation felt for cinema, politics, and sex, and therein is a good pointer as to what this fim is really about. It’s set in Paris in the Spring of 1968, when the city was shut down by a spontaneous uprising that, for a short time, united sanitation workers and students. But the three young protagonists of The Dreamers—American-in-Paris Michael Pitt and enfant-terrible "twins" Eva Green and Louis Garrell—barely ever leave their ornate, rambling apartment (the siblings’ parents are conveniently vacationing) during the film. They miss, for the most part, the "revolution" outside. But they make their own inside, guzzling wine, smoking very potent herb, arguing about movies and war and music, and intertwining themselves in various erotic and amorous positions.
As Bertolucci says, the movie’s about passion. The politics articulated here are simplistic, to be sure—so are the politics of the Beatles’ "All You Need is Love." The thrills of this movie are aesthetic ones, the creation of new, ravishing imagery (and all three of our young heroes are beautiful enough to be up to this task), the surrender to dream logic, the adoration of the silver screen. The literal-minded should take heed of this ultimately poetic movie’s title before passing judgment on it—the reference is not just to the title characters, but to the movie’s ideal audience. This is not a re-creation but a reverie.
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