If, like me, you have reached the age when you need assistance in understanding how today's young people behave, watching a North American movie production may help you. However if you want to understand not only how they behave but also why, what they are really thinking, and how they regard today's world, then you may get more help from one of the better European or Asiatic films, and "The Dreamers" might provide a very good starting point. If you recognise any need to become more aware of the factors contributing to the evolution of the society of the future you have few other options, but you might also be helping to reduce the generation gap and its associated stresses that have led to much recent street violence. My generation has no obligation to accept the judgements or wishes of a younger generation, but it has a real responsibility to at least understand them; young people today are very ready to discuss and defend their beliefs and this needs to be encouraged.
My apologies - I am writing a review - not preaching. Films like "The Dreamers" are less common in North America than in Europe and therefore tend to finish up more controversial here where far too much attention has been paid to the sexuality in the film. Not this but the more appropriate thoughts above came to my mind when I started commenting on it for IMDb. This film nominally follows the inter-relationship between three young people with an intense love for the cinema, an American student in Paris at the time of the 1968 student inspired street riots and French twins of a similar age. But this only provides a background against which its director Bernardo Bertolucci used the individual frames and sequences to build our appreciation of both the intensity and the shallowness of the beliefs that motivate his principal characters. It is easier to follow this film if one is a movie fan - flashbacks from classic films called to mind by one of the characters are used to set moods or changes of emotion. Street activities and even their layout or architecture are built into the fabric of the film. It would take many viewings before a critic could develop a full understanding of the message the director is trying to convey. Quite correctly this was an NC17 film in the US and Canada, much of its imagery would merely be confusing or disturbing to anyone younger, apart from this its very frank portrayal of the sexual interactions between the characters has also proved disturbing to many adult viewers. It is certainly not a film with universal appeal, although it is extremely rewarding for those viewers open to its attempts to probe the generation gap. Isabelle and Theo, the French twins, initially appear to their very conventional American friend Matthew to be modern radicals in full tune with the many concerns about society that young people were feeling during this period, and he willingly allows them to induct him into the various causes the rioters were attempting to promote. But gradually as the film runs we see him becoming disillusioned. He starts to appreciate that circumstances have led the twins into an over-close relationship which has begun to dominate their lives, so that despite lip adherence to these various progressive causes they are really becoming addicted to a personal lifestyle that is essentially self destructive. The film's ultimate message is obviously subject to the interpretation of the individual viewer, but in essence Bertolucci very gradually shows the twins as parasitic, they are not producing but are becoming conspicuously greater consumers, and this is clearly intended to be a parallel progression to that of the street rioters who initially have many very genuine concerns, but whose behaviour evolves in a way which makes their protests increasingly ineffectual. There is no future in anarchy as it rejects the very concepts of compromise and working together which provide the only basis for eventual progress.
No film attempting to convey such an ambitious message could totally succeed, nor could it hope to appeal to all filmgoers. Anyone planning to view it should at least read some reviews first to prepare them for what to expect, and if it does not sound the type of film they would enjoy they would be wise to stay away. But for those prepared to view it both closely and sympathetically this film can be a very rewarding experience. The credit for this must be shared between the director and the three young principal actors. Theo is played by the son of French director Phillipe Garrel and his background may have made it easier for these three actors to achieve the confidence in Bertolucci which must have been essential during the filming of some of the more intimate sequences; but all three of them have a remarkable maturity and offer us superb performances.
The film is based upon an original novel by Gilbert Adair. He also wrote the film-script so it should reflect the intentions of the original work fairly well; but I still want to read the book to assess whether Bertolucci has merely attempted to recreate it as a movie; or if not how far he has gone in re-interpreting it. Meantime my tentative rating for "The Dreamers" is 8 stars.
My apologies - I am writing a review - not preaching. Films like "The Dreamers" are less common in North America than in Europe and therefore tend to finish up more controversial here where far too much attention has been paid to the sexuality in the film. Not this but the more appropriate thoughts above came to my mind when I started commenting on it for IMDb. This film nominally follows the inter-relationship between three young people with an intense love for the cinema, an American student in Paris at the time of the 1968 student inspired street riots and French twins of a similar age. But this only provides a background against which its director Bernardo Bertolucci used the individual frames and sequences to build our appreciation of both the intensity and the shallowness of the beliefs that motivate his principal characters. It is easier to follow this film if one is a movie fan - flashbacks from classic films called to mind by one of the characters are used to set moods or changes of emotion. Street activities and even their layout or architecture are built into the fabric of the film. It would take many viewings before a critic could develop a full understanding of the message the director is trying to convey. Quite correctly this was an NC17 film in the US and Canada, much of its imagery would merely be confusing or disturbing to anyone younger, apart from this its very frank portrayal of the sexual interactions between the characters has also proved disturbing to many adult viewers. It is certainly not a film with universal appeal, although it is extremely rewarding for those viewers open to its attempts to probe the generation gap. Isabelle and Theo, the French twins, initially appear to their very conventional American friend Matthew to be modern radicals in full tune with the many concerns about society that young people were feeling during this period, and he willingly allows them to induct him into the various causes the rioters were attempting to promote. But gradually as the film runs we see him becoming disillusioned. He starts to appreciate that circumstances have led the twins into an over-close relationship which has begun to dominate their lives, so that despite lip adherence to these various progressive causes they are really becoming addicted to a personal lifestyle that is essentially self destructive. The film's ultimate message is obviously subject to the interpretation of the individual viewer, but in essence Bertolucci very gradually shows the twins as parasitic, they are not producing but are becoming conspicuously greater consumers, and this is clearly intended to be a parallel progression to that of the street rioters who initially have many very genuine concerns, but whose behaviour evolves in a way which makes their protests increasingly ineffectual. There is no future in anarchy as it rejects the very concepts of compromise and working together which provide the only basis for eventual progress.
No film attempting to convey such an ambitious message could totally succeed, nor could it hope to appeal to all filmgoers. Anyone planning to view it should at least read some reviews first to prepare them for what to expect, and if it does not sound the type of film they would enjoy they would be wise to stay away. But for those prepared to view it both closely and sympathetically this film can be a very rewarding experience. The credit for this must be shared between the director and the three young principal actors. Theo is played by the son of French director Phillipe Garrel and his background may have made it easier for these three actors to achieve the confidence in Bertolucci which must have been essential during the filming of some of the more intimate sequences; but all three of them have a remarkable maturity and offer us superb performances.
The film is based upon an original novel by Gilbert Adair. He also wrote the film-script so it should reflect the intentions of the original work fairly well; but I still want to read the book to assess whether Bertolucci has merely attempted to recreate it as a movie; or if not how far he has gone in re-interpreting it. Meantime my tentative rating for "The Dreamers" is 8 stars.