|
|
The Dreamers
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
Insufferably pretentious and gratuitously explicit film about a quiet American student (Michael Pitt) studying in Paris, whose love of old movies leads to an unwholesome triangular relationship with a brother (Louis Garrel) and sister (Eva Green), left alone to turn their apartment into a sexual playground while their parents are away on holiday during the tumultuous summer of 1968. Based on the ironically titled novel "Holy Innocents" by Gilbert Adair, director Bernardo Bertolucci's soft-core erotic tale, though clearly the product of a man in love with movies, says about as much about sex and politics as his controversial "Last Tango in Paris" said about sex and alienation -- which is absolutely nothing. Graphic sexual encounters with extended full frontal nudity, an incestuous relationship, an attempted suicide, some mob violence, as well as recurring rough and crude language. O -- morally offensive. (NC-17) 2004
Full Review
Archbishop Fulton Sheen once defined the "intelligentsia" as those people educated beyond their intelligence. After seeing director Bernardo Bertolucci's insufferably pretentious and gratuitously explicit "The Dreamers" (Fox Searchlight), one is inclined to invent a new subset to this highbrow haughtiness for artists lauded beyond their talent.
After igniting the flames of controversy 30 years ago with his steamy existential anti-romance "Last Tango in Paris" (1973), Bertolucci returns to the Champs-Elysees to craft a hothouse chamber piece exploring the nexus of sex, politics and cinema. Banking on Bertolucci's reputation as a respected auteur, Fox Searchlight is rolling the dice, releasing the film with the risky, though well-deserved, NC-17 rating, the latest in only a short list of major studio productions to be branded with that kiss-of-death imprimatur -- the last being the 1995 box-office debacle, "Showgirls."
Based on the novel "Holy Innocents" by Gilbert Adair and set in the gathering cultural storm of 1968, the film stars Michael Pitt as Matthew, a quiet young American and ardent film buff studying, like many cinephiles of his generation, in Paris, the European epicenter of political and sexual experimentation.
His quasi-religious devotion to classic films, acted upon by the gravitational pull of the famed French movie palace, the Cinematheque, sets his orbit in a direct crash course with Theo (Louis Garrel) and Isabelle (Eva Green), an unwholesomely close brother and sister taking part in the student protests that would ultimately erupt in mass riots and engulf the entire city. When the Cinematheque's doors are barred and its beloved director relieved of his duties by the de Gaulle government, the siblings invite Matthew back to their labyrinthine apartment. Shortly thereafter, their parents wave au revoir, leaving the trio alone with the run of the house.
The flirtation takes an unexpected turn when Matthew spies Theo and Isabelle asleep together -- their naked intertwined forms giving the phrase "conjoined twins" an incestuous twist. Soon after, the Yank is fully initiated into their dysfunctional dance when he becomes an unwilling participant in a kinky movie trivia game. While the rest of their age group takes to the streets, the trio takes to the sheets, spending much of the remainder of the movie in the, er, film buff, heatedly debating Marxism, U.S. involvement in Vietnam and the superiority of Charlie Chaplin over Buster Keaton.
Sadly, like "Last Tango," which starred Marlon Brando, this film's selling point is its exploitative eroticism, which includes a provocative masturbation scene and extended sequences containing close-up, full frontal nudity. Yet despite these salacious elements, the film will probably not generate as much controversy as its predecessor, in large part due to its no-name cast and the lamentable reality that moviegoers have become more acculturated to graphic sexuality. In defending his fascination -- almost fixation -- with sex, the cinematic provocateur has stated, "An orgasm is better than a bomb," which is what this movie is -- a bomb.
Unlike his earlier paeans to sexual liberation, no explanation is offered as to why his young protagonists behave the way they do. Whereas Brando's emotional violence in "Tango" could, in part, be rationalized by his grief over his wife's suicide, Theo and Isabelle simply come across as spoiled narcissists, and their avoidance of any real activist involvement exposes them for the political poseurs they are.
In fairness to Bertolucci, the sensual film is clearly the work of a man in love with movies. Many of the sequences play like love poems to the filmmakers who influenced him, most notably Goddard and Truffaut.
However, "The Dreamers" collapses under the weight of its inflated sense of self-importance; the very Utopian idealism and youthful optimism it purports to celebrate is sabotaged by the nihilism of the film's final reel. At 63, Bertolucci has the desperation of an aging demagogue still hawking his moth-eaten gospel of free love -- a libertinism as morally empty today as it was back in 1968.
His film, set in the City of Lights, offers no such illumination beyond Camus' grim observation that "all that can be said of modern man is that he fornicates and reads newspapers" -- or, in this case, watches movies.
Due to several graphic sexual encounters with extended full frontal nudity, an incestuous relationship, an attempted suicide, some mob violence, as well as recurring rough and crude language, the USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is O -- morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is NC-17 -- no one 17 and under admitted.
Movies have been evaluated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishop's Office for Film and Broadcasting according to artistic
merit and moral suitability. The reviews include the USCCB rating,
the Motion Picture Association of America rating, and a brief
synopsis of the movie.
The classifications are as follows:
- A-I -- general patronage;
- A-II -- adults and adolescents;
- A-III -- adults;
- A-IV**
- L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L replaces the previous classification, A-IV.
- O -- morally offensive.
** Discontinued classification. All archived movies that were originally in the A-IV category are now classified as L.
|