What Bertolucci does capture well is the obsessive love the French have always had for the cinema as both entertainment and art form. He is never quite able to bring these background elements and the foreground story together in any meaningful way. Isabelle, Theo and Matthew are so insulated and cut off from the outside world that the points Bertolucci seemingly wants to make about the times - as reflected in protesters marching in the streets, the references to Vietnam, Mao and Jimmy Hendrix - feel tacked on and superfluous, not particularly integral to the film as a whole. Due to the extremely sensitive nature of the subject matter, Bertolucci often seems more interested in shocking than enlightening us. Only over time does Matthew awaken to this realization. Isabelle and Theo are 'radicals' to be sure, yet their radicalism seems to be channeled in a self-destructive, ultimately futile direction. Yet, Mathew eventually discovers that they are really only passive observers paying little but lip service to the cause, too obsessed with their own twisted relationship to actually step out and participate in those grand social movements they talk so freely about. Their power of attraction proves overwhelming and irresistible for Matthew, for they are both exotically beautiful creatures, seemingly in tune with the trendy radicalism swirling around them. Thus, he becomes the perfect candidate for Isabelle and Theo to work their magic on. Matthew is a product of his time, a young man who is not very experienced in the ways of the world but who is willing to partake in the moral relativism that is permeating the culture. Matthew (Michael Pitt, who looks for all the world like Leonardo Di Caprio) is the young American in Paris whom they pull into their strange little world of sexual intrigue and emotional games. In 'The Dreamers,' Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Garrel) are twins who have developed a rather 'unnatural' attraction to one another, becoming 'one' in virtually every way imaginable - physically, spiritually, psychically. Time and culture sure do march on, and it always seems to be the French leading the way. Leave it to the French to be exploring l'amour in all its myriad possibilities! In terms of plotting, 'The Dreamers' is much like an incestuous version of Truffaut's menage a trois classic 'Jules and Jim,' with the new film's subject matter as shocking today as was the earlier film's in its own time. Since the film is set in Paris in 1968, the radicalism naturally takes the form of perverted sexuality and extreme cinephilia. 'The Dreamers' is Bernardo Bertolucci's bizarre and fascinating (if not altogether successful) distillation of the radical '60's mentality.
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