The Dreamers
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
2003
19 June 2025
See
Set during the 1968 Paris student riots, American exchange student Matthew (Michael Pitt) meets fellow film buffs Isabelle (Eva Green) and her twin brother Theo (Luis Garrel) at the cinematheque and form an intense bond.
Think
Finding purpose in purposelessness, Theo and Isabelle cross polite boundaries of propriety and personal space, in the bathroom and in bed, constantly bathing together and sleeping next to one another then extending that to Michael along with an invitation to move in with them while their parents are away as a way to get to know each other. He does and falls in love with them both, Isabelle because she’s beautiful and posed, from her surprisingly curated bedroom to how she dresses up as the Venus of Milo statue, before Matthew performs oral sex on her. Theo’s friendship comes from their tete-a-tetes over cinema and literature as well as music escalating passionately into politics. But there isn’t nearly enough of that and the trio feel removed from the tumultuous times and come across as particularly privileged until the end which almost comes as a surprise with only a lose introduction of the director of the Paris cinematheque being fired by the government, and then rubbish and barricades being built in the streets before the molotov cocktail is picked up.
Feel
Obviously erotic and perhaps if I’d seen it when it came out I would’ve been moved more. But besides the sex scenes and showing their genitals the dynamics weren’t as transgressive as I’d projected from the little I knew about this film. The recreating famous scenes from cinema was the most fun, like the bait and switch of thinking Isabelle and Theo were going to invite Matthew into a menage a trois but actually asking him to take part in running through the Louvre in record time, like in Jean-Luc Godard’s Bande Apart. Green has become an international star and Garrel is a big deal in France. Putt has fallen on hard times after Boardwalk Empire, his troubles come across as so sad. Here he’s still doe eyed, pouty lipped and innocent.
