The Dreamers
Matthew (Michael Pitt) looked for enlightenment in the year 1968 and was attracted to France. But once he got there, he was hooked into French cinema and mostly stayed in the theatre. From this, he builds a relationship with Isabelle and Theo (Eva Green and Louis Garrel), twin siblings living with their parents, the father a famous author. These two grew up on cinema, especially on New Wave Cinema pioneered by Godard and others, and strike up fascinating conversations with Matthew, even inviting him to stay at their apartment. When their parents leave, Isabelle and Theo's innocent bond with Matthew soon becomes something more. Though movies are always foremost on their minds, with debates about the comedic stylings of Charlie Chaplin vs. Buster Keaton or the beauty of Greta Garbo, like most teenagers, sex affects them as well and with most of the film set in the apartment, it becomes inevitable what happens. The dream state the trio lives in soon meets up with the reality of the revolution happening just outside their door.

You get the nice feeling of nostalgia when you watch this film. Bertolucci intersperses a few scenes with clips of New Wave films like Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless and it really makes you yearn for the time when movies reached for a higher level. While that's not to say movies today don't, it's just that the quality seems a bit down. "The Dreamers" is visually striking to watch, both in the beauty of the cinematography and locale and in the shock value of all the sex that goes on between Matthew and Isabelle along with Theo watching from a distance. Yet, the sex acts as a distraction from the bond we are seeing growing before our very eyes. Instead, we fascinate as we see other things growing before our eyes. Along with an ending that doesn't get too much set-up throughout the movie, we're left with a mismanaged film; a bunch of scenes obsessed with the sex without all the value that comes from setting it all up. The foreplay, I guess. 2 stars