The Dreamers Seems Like an NC-17 Version of Now

The Dreamers (2004)

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci

Fox Searchlight, 118 minutes, NC-17 (graphic sexuality, disturbing inferences)

(English and French with subtitles)

★★★★★

The French are as obsessed with the events of May 1968 as Americans are with the 1968 Chicago police riots or Kent State. History might hold lessons for contemporary movements such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter, especially the dangers of pushing the Establishment beyond the breaking point.

In 1968, student protests, Communist Party rallies, and wildcat strikes set French against French in ways not seen since the 1871 Paris Commune. These almost toppled the Fifth Republic. The Dreamers opens with a massive protest outside the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, whose co-founder Henri Langlois has been dismissed for refusing a government directive. For serious film scholars–the sort who religiously read Cahiers du Cinéma–this was a slap at French culture, intellectualism, and freedom. The journal and Cinémathèque–a theater, archive, and film preservation center–gave credence to auteur theory, nurtured French New Wave directors, and made millions understand there is a world of difference between a movie and a film. It’s hardly surprising that many New Wave directors made films about May 1968: Truffault (Stolen Kisses, 1968), Godard (Tout va Bien, 1972), Chabrol (Nada, 1974), Malle (May Fools, 1990). Bernardo Bertolucci (1941-2018) was Italian, but he was definitely an auteur and made numerous films in France, which is where movies were born, by the way.

You don’t need to know all of this to appreciate The Dreamers, but it helps. The Cinémathèque protest is where our three principals meet: Matthew (Michael Pitt), an American studying in Paris; and Théo (Louis Garrel) and his twin sister Isabelle (Eva Green in her first film), two Parisian students obsessed with cinema and each other. The twins invite Matthew into their home, where he has an intellectual discussion with their parents, the 18-year-old variety that sounds deeper than it really is. When mom and dad leave for a month in the country, Matthew moves in.

If graphic sexuality on the screen makes you squirm, you probably ought to steer clear of this film. Bertolucci is also the director who gave us Last Tango in Paris (1972) and La Luna (1979), both of which delved into taboo sexual expressiveness. The Dreamers involves steamy scenes involving masturbation, a deflowering, and leaves-nothing-to-the-imagination copulation. Matthew discovers Théo and Isabelle sleeping naked in the same bed, which they dismiss as the closeness of “Siamese twins” who are joined by thought. As it turns out in the film, Théo and Isabelle are not incestuous lovers, so I suppose one could look at this as commentary on a countercultural impulse to exorcise “hang ups.” For what it’s worth, Bertolucci pulled a few punches from The Holy Innocents, the Gilbert Adair novel upon which the film script (from Adair) was based. I’ve not read it, but reviews mention incest and bisexual three-ways.

Matthew and his new French friends have lots of playful fun at first. They argue over films and music–Chaplin or Keaton? Hendrix or Clapton? They also act out scenes from auteur films–including a race through the Louvre à la Godard’s Bande à part–live like bohemians, smoke, and raid the family wine supply. Always, though, there is a revolution taking place on the streets and Théo feels drawn to it, a source of political tension with Matthew who questions the effectiveness of destruction. Tension increases when the three play the game of Consequences in which the loser must do as the person posing the question commands. Isabelle has secretly witnessed her brother pleasure himself and when Théo loses, he must do so in front of her and Matthew. When she loses, Théo orders her to have sex with Matthew. As they say, the cat is out of the bag and soon Matthew and Isabelle are lovers. Théo is a bit jealous (though he has a girlfriend) and politics begin to loom larger. There is also obvious homoerotic tension between Théo and Matthew, but because it goes no further, it seems all the more erotic.

So, is The Dreamers little more than a sex film in an apartment on a noisy street? I think not. Unlike movies, which seek only to entertain, auteur films often delve into the psyche of characters and seek to make the audience think. The Dreamers is also a film about what one says versus what one will do. Inside the apartment, there is tension between talk of liberation and acting liberated; street protests evoke the old split between anarchists of the word and those of the deed. Would you hurl a Molotov cocktail if you believed it would help topple oppression? Bertolucci layered all of this with lots of period music–including songs from The Doors, Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Steve Miller, and Dylan–and bathes it in the gorgeous cinematography of Fabio Cianchetti.

Auteurs frequently leave lots of things unanswered. May 1968 did not end well. Unions made side deals and street violence begat tear gas and clubs. Did students go too far? Is that why the Gaullists retained power in France and why the U.S. ended up with Nixon? Was liberation too shallow to stand up to challenge? (Good questions for today!) Indeed, is the sex in The Dreamers sweet or voyeuristic? But maybe Bertolucci tipped his hand. The ending song is from Edith Piaf, “Non, Je ne regrette rien” (No, I regret nothing.)

This film is 16 years old, but somehow feels like a newsflash.

Rob Weir