Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: NC-17
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0024543128083
Format: Anamorphic
Label: 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: 20th Century Fox
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2004-07-13
Running Time: 115
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Theatrical Release Date: 2003

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Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: Pretty And Charming But Nothing To Say
Comment: I wouldn't say this movie is a bad film, but afterward you won't gain any food for thought from it. The two stars of the film are Eva Green's boobs. For the ladies, there's dongs hanging out quite a bit. Basically, the movie is about nudity, and three young characters trying to appear just likable and jolly enough to hide the fact they're in a softcore movie, with a few boundry pushing moments (that won't be that shocking to mature adults in this day and age I would think.) I'm not trying to be mean, but despite the great music, taboo subjects, and 60's counter-culture, everything about the plot is pretty much dull and cut'n'paste version of those things. Oh yeah, the characters are film buffs too, which really leads to cut'n'paste, as moments from their favorite films are sprinkled in the movie. So overall, I felt the whole story was ineffective, and the structure of the film ends up what I guess you could call "cute." The atmosphere and candid spirit of sexual adventure are what take a film that can't find anything to say and at least make it a comfortable trip. The question is, is that enough to make it a great movie, or is this a great cop-out that shouldn't think itself any greater than a skinemax late night movie? That's what I'm still wondering, and believe me I'd prefer the film had raised more substantial questions than that.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Art House....Keep Dreaming
Comment: The Dreamers is set in Paris during the student riots of the 60's. It follows two siblings, Theo and Isabelle, and an American foreign exchange student Matthew. The Parisian setting is the last bit of the social strife brought up in the movie until the end. The bulk of the movie is spent with the main characters exploring their sexuality. There are some watchable parts to the movie, but for the most part it was good only if you like gratuitous nudity. I know that it is labeled as an artsy movie and that is what Bertolucci is known for but it seems to be less of a thinking movie and more of an excuse for Eva Green to get naked. If that's what you're looking for then this movie is for you but if you are looking for a good period piece then I would look to somewhere else.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Watch it alone, or when you're about to enjoy yourself ;)
Comment: This movie was amazing! It's a movie about French movies, and the plot is really nice and funny. I really enjoyed watching this movie. If you're gonna watch it, watch it by yourself, or with your partner. It's very VERY sexual. Loved it!

Customer Rating:

Summary: Bertolucci's return to Paris isn't entirely successful
Comment: Matthew (Michael Pitt) is a young American student who is studying in Paris. He spends his days and nights at the Cinematheque where a large number of film buffs gather to watch the latest films from all over the world. Matthew notices two people always in the audience like himself but doesn't have the courage to introduce himself. One day during a protest in front of the theater which has now been shut down by the government he befriends the girl Isabelle (Eva Green) and her brother Theo (Louis Garrel). They have noticed him too and wonder about him. They invite him over to dinner to meet their folks and then when the folks leave in the morning for a month abroad they invite him to move in with them. Matthew is shocked by not only how eager they are to invite someone they don't even know to live with them but also by a discovery he made in the middle of the night: Theo and Isabelle lying nude in the same bed together. However the lure of Isabelle is too hard to resist so Matthew moves in with the incestuous siblings and the three spend their days debating movies and playing games with each other that start off in good fun but turn sexual. Matthew reveals that he is a pacifist and that he doesn't agree with the violence that is taking place outside of the apartment which greatly contrasts with Theo who believes in revolution and quotes Mao regularly. Soon with Theo as instigator and Isabelle a willing participant Matthew is drawn into their sexual games. This comprises a third of the movie and there is nothing wrong with the sex and nudity since Eva Green is not only very attractive but has an unbelievable body but the problem is that nothing of consequence happens until the film's last act. It is only when the riots outside literally shatters their revel in the apartment that the three must take sides and take action. Michael Pitt despite being an odd looking version of Leonardo DiCaprio is a very good actor and his final look at the siblings at the end of the film is devastating. Matthew tries to convince the siblings that they can't live like this playing these kind of games with each other that they need to let each other go in order to grow up. Isabelle doesn't provide any sort of resistance to either man Matthew or her brother she loves them both. Theo is the most volatile of the group as he quickly becomes tired of Matthew sleeping with Isabelle but is more angered by his pacifist views. The film is a nice tribute to youth and the sixties which is what Bertolucci was hoping to make but the actual consequence and the three characters having to deal with the political revolution taking place around them comes too late. The DVD has a commentary track by Bertolucci as well as the screenwriter and producer, a very good hour long making of shot by the BBC which shows the serious intentions of everyone making the film and how hard of a director Bertolucci was on his cast, and there is also a thirteen minute doc on the events of 68 which are recreated for the film. Lastly are two trailers and a music video of Michael Pitt and the amusingly named Twins of Evil doing a cover of Hey Joe which is used in the film. Its a good movie with some good performances and some fantastic nude scenes but the serious intentions to educate the audience about the political landscape of Paris in 68 is not handled well.

Customer Rating:

Summary: One Of My New Favorites
Comment: This gloriously liberated movie is a tough one to describe, and if you've seen it, you know what I mean. And please do see it uncut. It's just ridiculous to do otherwise because you'll lose much more than a few nude scenes, you'll lose its fearless magic.

As the fortieth anniversary of France's 1968 riots arrives, Bernardo Bertolucci's impressive but oft overlooked 2003 opus, The Dreamers, is suddenly at the fore of films which commemorate an explosive moment in modern European history of which few Americans are even aware. It is as if it took half a decade for the world to catch up with this a work of startlingly immodest originality, and find a place for it. With its near constant full frontal nudity, male and female alike, its non-erotic, non-pornographic, extremely realistic depictions of sex, its physically beautiful cast, its homage to films of the cinematic Golden Age, The Dreamers is a motion picture as vaguely disturbing as it is freakishly endearing, as frankly sexual as it is slightly dopey, as limited in its ability to display its inner imaginings as it is uninhibited in its capacity to aim unabashedly high in its artistic ambitions.

Set in Paris in 1968, mostly in a slightly decayed yet opulent flat populated by parentally unchaperoned, semi-incestuous post-adolescent twins (Eva Green and Louis Garrel) and their American guest, The Dreamers quietly presents itself sans apologies, and is soon revealed as a long, faintly claustrophobic tale of sex and mind games among members of a love triangle: a misplaced American loner traveling in France, and two native-born siblings whose obvious ennui is raw material for the shockingly sick games they undertake with one another. While somehow innocent, even sylph-like, the twins, Theo and Isabelle, compel each other and their American guest, Matthew (Dawson's Creek's Michael Pitt) to carry out depraved yet apparently consequence-free acts upon themselves and each other. Citing shared radical politics and an ardent love of film (a medium whose sheer otherwordly unreality mirrors the twins' own lives), the trio bond as soul mates and play at fantasy inside their sheltered realm, even as outside riots rage and sudden poverty forces them to dine on other people's refuse. Nothing seems capable of infusing reality into the twins self-created little universe, though at times Matthew breaks free of the spell long enough to try, as when he asks Isabelle, long-since his lover, out on her first date.

There are better films out there but none exactly like this. It has to be seen to quite be believed.

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Editorial Reviews:

A love letter to movies (and the French new wave of the 1960s in particular), Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers starts with a 1968 riot outside of a Parisian movie palace then burrows into an insular love triangle. Matthew (Michael Pitt, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), an expatriate American student, bonds with a twin brother and sister, Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Garrel), over their mutual love of film--they not only quote lines of dialogue, they act out small bits and challenge each other to name the cinematic source. Matthew suspects the twins of incest, but that doesn't stop him from falling into his own intimacies with Isabelle. As the threesome becomes threatened, Paris succumbs to student riots. The Dreamers aspires to be kinky, but the results are more decorative than decadent; nonetheless, the movie's lively energy recalls the careless and vital exuberance of Godard and Truffaut. --Bret Fetzer