Thirty years ago, director Bernardo Bertolucci shocked audiences with his sexually explicit “Last Tango In Paris”. And “The Dreamers” is second part of this film. I really don’t know why did he make second part of the film, if he knew that in this time, on the beginning of the brand new century, this film wouldn’t be too shocking after all. The Italian director has returned to the scene of the crime in another bare bottom bedroom study of erotic rejection and neglect. But, there’s a big difference between Tango and Dreamers.

It is Paris, 1968. Matthew (Michael Pitt), young American, meets French twins Théo (Louis Garrel) and Isabelle (Eva Green) at the Cinémathèque Francaise, during demonstration against Henri Langlois. Matthew is broke with no money, when they invite him to dinner in the family house. There, he meets their English father (Robin Renucci) and French mother (Anna Chancellor). Matthew is invited to stay with them and once when the parents gone away, three friends begin a life of suspicious bohemia. Discussing politics, playing film-buff quiz, they’re increasing, a weird sexual games. Unexplainably, a three-some starts sexual relationship. Isabelle there makes Théo masturbate in front of them; later on Théo asks Matthew and Isabelle to have sex in front of him, where Matthew discovers Isabelle’s virginity. All along ill relationship between twins is escalating, getting wilder and wilder. And Matthew is getting tangled in all this, by falling in love with twin sister. Wishing to break her closeness to her brother, who is apparently incestuous, he takes her out, provoking jealous fits of rage... Most strangest thing is that parents are aware and approving their closeness, leaving the money under the tent in the sitting room, under which they all sleep together, naked. Love, sex and rock’n’roll! Isabelle wakes up, realizing that her parents know and have visited. She turns the gas on to commit group suicide. Despite Matthew's warning, saved from the gas poisoning, Isabelle and Théo join the street battle.

“The Dreamers” is the first film to openly take a category exclusively for adults, because it is labeled as quite pornographic. I cannot say what BB wanted to present here. What kind of shock he expects here. Mathew’s visit to the Sorbonne is a cliché iconography rather than an accurate of events. It is shocking enough this open pornographic relationship between twins, without their constant three-some nakedness. This is story about neglect and abounding, lack of parental feelings, God knows what else. Story about sexual apotheosis in one Paris flat 1968. Flat so dark and narrow just like captured narrowness of their poor souls. You don’t know what to feel whether you should feel discussed or feel pity. Non of it is not shocking enough, not now, like “Last tango in Paris” back than in 70s. Most surprising is the fact that middle-aged Marlon Brando has been replaced with highly naïve young man, Matthew (Michael Pitt). Why is that I wander…“The Dreamers” can also be seen as Bertolucci’s homage to the French New Wave*. French New Wave took place in 1968, during the student revolt of that summer. An American student studying in Paris, became a regular practice at the state-run film institute, the Cinematheque Francaise. I mean the title of the film refers to how Isabelle and Theo, together with Matthew, live in their self-created fantasy world. When they aren’t playing sexual mind games, they argue whether Chaplin is greater than Keaton or whether Hendrix is greater than Clapton. Their intellectual* contemporaries are confronting the streets of Paris- fight for freedom. Fighting for what kind of freedom? What freedom he is talking about here? Twins having incest relationship is far too much freedom, don’t you think? The catch in “The Dreamers” have more to do with the characters, while the device of an innocent becoming a perverse family issue, which is far too familiar. I think that author wanted to gain with the fact that “Last tango in Paris” was indeed, something shocking. Bertolucci describes “The Dreamers” as the film about three utopias centered on his memories of May '68: political, cinematic and sexual, and by far the most engaging aspect of the film is its celebration of cinema. Well, it is not like that. You cannot glorify the issue of the great cinema by glorifying incest. In this respect, what the film celebrates is not so much cinema, as it is cinephilia- the part of twin’s perverse life.

This is certainly not film for teenagers or children. And it is certainly not the film for relaxing, as being highly engaging with its content. THE DREAMERS are avariable on English and French, with English subtitles. Film was in official selection on Sundance Film Festival, Venice Film Festival and London Film Festival. Unless you are the critic on the film festival, you cannot easily find the film. But it is certainly reachable on DVDs on Internet, www.Amazon.com for only $13.48. A production by Fox Searchlight Pictures, Recorded Picture Company/Peninsula Films/Fiction production.