The smouldering passion that ignites the central love triangle, with it’s heated arguments and graphic lovemaking, burns brightly for a brief moment and then blows itself out. Admittedly it’s sad, but spotting quick snippets from films such as Breathless and Band A Parte provides an added distraction to cling onto when the story begins to wane in its ability to hold your attention.
#The movie the dreamers archive#
The intimate little social trysts are interspersed with archive film footage, which spices up the viewing experience for any film lover. As the three leads embark on a fantastical journey of discovery and self-indulgence they close themselves off from the outside world and turn their parents’ high-ceilinged Parisien apartment into a refuge for copious amounts of sex, socio-political musings and arguments over their favourite actors, musicians and film directors. Bertolucci injects an adolescent energy into the central portion of the film, and you can tell the director is having a lot of fun.
When Theo and Isabelle’s parents leave the city for a seaside break, the kids run riot. Pitt’s Ivy League charms provide a stark counterpoint to Theo and Isabelle’s streetwise European outlook, providing the agitation that fuels the narrative along with the passion in their relationship. Like the innocent being led astray, Matthew soon finds himself embroiled in the decadent lifestyle of Theo (the epitome of Gallic virility Louis Garrel) and Isabelle (captivating newcomer Eva Vincent), politically astute siblings who make the education of Matthew their pet project. He has made a pilgrimage to seek out the heady combination of culture and conflict that is spreading throughout the student community of Paris, and he finds it on the steps of the city’s foremost art cinema. Michael Pitt (the understudy who stepped in after Jake Gyllenhaal bulked at the nudity required by the role) is Matthew, the young American transfixed by the old world charms of sixties Paris. The film delves back into Paris 1968 that watershed for youth culture, which left an indelible mark in the minds of writers, artists, and filmmakers for a generation.īertolucci foregrounds a deeply introspective story against an accurate historical context, even going to the extent of using archive footage to authenticate the films’ opening scene. It seems that the venerated director has turned the camera lens inwards, in one of his most high-spirited and idealistic movies to date. Therefore it seems appropriate that the directors’ latest movie, The Dreamers, an adaptation of Gilbert Adair’s novel The Holy Innocents and his first in five years, should make use of cinephilia as the foundation for the physical and intellectual ménage a trois that develops at the heart of the film. He is one of only a handful of international directors whose name on the poster is the key selling point for the film, regardless of who’s starring in it, or what it’s about. Wherever your loyalties lie it’s impossible to ignore the buzz his films still command. Those with sympathies more firmly lodged on the west coast of America have used the dreaded P word (amongst others) to describe the Italian’s output. Those with a soft spot for European cinema have always maintained that his work, even at it’s most grandiloquent, deserves to be included in the pantheon of post-war classics.
The cinema of Bernardo Bertolucci has provided the meat of many a heated film debate since his emergence in the 1970’s.
Classification: 18 Director: Bernardo Bertolucci Rating: 3.5/ 5
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