The Dreamers tells the story of Matthew (Pitt), an American college student pursuing his education abroad in Paris in 1968. He eventually befriends a French brother, Theo (Garrel), and sister, Isabelle (Green), on account of a shared love of film. As the two siblings ask Matthew to push their relationship into uncharted sexual territory, the Paris student riots (which eventually shut down most of the French government) transpire in the background.
About the biggest problem with the film is its adamant insistence on being as lewd as possible. The film seems to operate on the premise that the more erotic, lascivious, and shocking its scenes, the closer to truth it will be. Shock-as-truth has worked very well in films like Larry Clark’s Bully (about kids killing for kicks) and Henry Bean’s The Believer (about a young Jew living as a neo-Nazi). However, it is no mere trifle that these films are not about sexuality. Indeed, Larry Clark attempted a shock-as-truth film about teenage sexuality in his 1995 film KIDS. That film suffers from the same misgivings as does The Dreamers.
For whatever reason, sex has never been an easy topic about which to make an explicit film without falling into the trap of overt pornography at the expense of artistic creativity. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that sex is such an intimate topic, that any such explicit presentation necessarily gives rise to a healthy skepticism about any notions of truth. The more explicit the scenes, the less intimate they become; the less intimate they become, the less truthful they seem, as sex between lovers is something traditionally understood as a most intimate and personal act. Underlying this analysis is a very valid notion that sex, if it is to be truthfully presented, cannot be presented at all, for the presentation itself defeats its inherent intimacy.
So when we watch as Theo masturbates to the picture on his wall at the insistence of his sister, it is not an intimate moment. When we watch as Matthew deflowers Isabelle on the kitchen floor, smearing the blood seeping from her genitals upon their faces in a kind of poetic affirmation of the act of love (as opposed to lust), it is not an intimate moment. Too much is shown, and too little is left to the imagination. The camera is so invasive, and so bent upon creating voyeurs out of us all, that the integrity of the performances suffers. Instead of passion and revelation, we get dirty sexual acts that do little if anything to advance the story or the themes.
The Dreamers can only be interpreted as an old director’s tasteless excuse to show young people having sex. Certainly, the themes this movie confronts are so unoriginal as to go virtually unnoticed. Bertolucci seems to attempt to parallel the social revolution of the 1960s in France to the personal (and, ultimately, sexual) revolution of Matthew, the doe-eyed American. However, we are told next to nothing of the social revolution happening beyond the front doors of the siblings’ house; and films about personal sexual discovery come a dime a dozen these days. Furthermore, the relationships between the trio are so curiously underdeveloped that the sex acts cannot possibly be understood as anything but animalistic acts of sexual abandon. Matthew’s interactions with Theo and Isabelle lack the spark necessary to transform their sexual acts into ones of love, passion, or even friendship. There is no inspiration to their supposed romances apart from their love of film—a theme which is abandoned early on once the sexual acts begin to crowd the film’s focus.
Bertolucci should have taken his cue from Alfonso Cuaron’s Y Tu Mama Tambien, which artfully captures the social problems in Mexico through the clever use of a roadtrip, all the while unraveling the sexual and personal awakenings of the three young protagonists. Indeed, Cuaron’s film succeeds in large part because he understands that sexual tension is often all too apparent from the way we communicate and interact with one another; showing the actual act of copulation is, in a sense, the easy way out. Not only does Bertolucci take the easy way out with The Dreamers, but he attempts to pass it off as art as well. Dare to dream.
I’d give Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers a D+.
"...can only be interpreted as an old director’s tasteless excuse to show young people having sex."
director: bernardo bertolucci
starring: michael pitt, eva green, louis garrel, robin renucci, anna chancellor, florian cadiou
