Though not nearly as awful as its immediate predecessors (Besieged and Stealing Beauty), The Dreamers will do little to dispel the notion that Bernardo Bertolucci now exclusively churns out sad masturbation fantasies for middle-aged cineastes who can remember a time when the butter scene in Last Tango In Paris wasn’t regarded as a broad physical comedy classic.
Based on the pretentious Gilbert Adair novel The Holy Innocents, the film sees a young American film-buff played by Michael Pitt sexually drawn into the quasi-incestuous twinship of broody Cahiers devotee Theo (Garrel) and mind-fucking Godardian heroine Isabelle (Green). The tempestuous 1968 backdrop, hyper-cool period soundtrack (replete with Janis and Jimi bien entendu) and the multitude of movie quotations should ensure a heady mix of revolution, sex and drugs, but the film doesn’t come together at all. The characterisation is muddied, the protagonist is an annoying buzzwrecker, the narrative progression is non-existent and even some of the shots are poor. Of course, there are acres of soft-focus naked young flesh, but there’s a terrifically good reason why sex-scenes don’t appear in mainstream cinema anymore. Unless they’re reasonably inventive (and they aren’t here) then you just sit there checking your watch with that inevitable ‘been there, done that, got the handcuffs’ feeling. Besides, there seem to be any number of Red, Hot and Nubile options at a TV screen near you courtesy of that nice Mr Murdoch’s channel package, so why Bertolucci – author of such exhilarating films as The Conformist and The Spider’s Stratagem – feels the need to make sad, voyeuristic movies like this is quite mystifying. Sorry to say, that the entire enterprise feels like the cinematic equivalent of stumbling upon an elderly Italian sniffing through the contents of your knicker-drawer.
To be fair, The Dreamers does have one thing going for it, and that’s the remarkable Eva Green. I don’t know what was more impressive – her vowels or her oft-exposed breasts, but I’d be willing to bet what most of the target male audience will prefer. The vowels, obviously.