Rating: 
Summary: You either Love it or Hate it.
Review: There is no gray area in this film and make no mistake it is a "film" not an order pizza and chill with it flick. A must for film students to see, for its historical and 'guess what film thats from', content. This is a very raw and powerful work. I reccomend it only for people with celluloidal fortitude.
I think a lot of people rented this movie thinking that it was something that its not. Its not fluff. Its not soft porn. Its raw, its real, its as delicate and complex as a spiderweb and its worth the time you need to watch it.
Rating:
Summary: The Dreamers(NC-17)
Review: A good movie but not really over the top. (not decadent enough) the french have a habit of talking too much.!!! less talk and more action would be better!!!!!need to develope the actors more(Eva Green)
Rating: 
Summary: Bold, brave and inquisitive
Review: Bertolucci displays with this unnecessarily controversial movie more bravery than many other directors half his age. Anyone who is young should see it to observe the contradictions that youth's idealism brings upon the three protagonists. Anyone who is older should watch it to remember the bravery of times gone by, to remember a time when many of us still believed protests could change the world and to acknowledge the validity of both youth's panache and experience's fountain of knowledge.
Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat Disappointed
Review: Bertolucci is briliant as usual, as this film leaves plenty of mind candy to suck on. But the acting did not measure up.
The two male lead performances were uninspiring. It seemed as though Michael Pitt was reading his script from the cue cards. I found that these lame duck performances dragged this film down a notch.
The story is interesting, as an American student, studying abroad in Paris, hooks up with a brother and sister, who are movie buffs, as is he. They bond by acting out parts in movies, and passionatly arguing cinematic trivia, like Keaton vs. Chaplin. OUtside of their little world, Paris is being overtaken by revolution, and there are a million philosophical paths surrounding the revolution that this film takes. Sex is an intricate part, and is tied in well, it compliments the overall story.
Again, this is worth viewing, but, I'd rather read the screenplay, because the acting leaves much to be desired.
Rating:
Summary: Trio
Review: Considering all of the hoopla that surrounds The Dreamers, I was expecting the film to be filled with even more "controversial" material, then there was. Yes, there's a lot of explicit adult material, depicting a unique relationship. But that's it really...
In May 1968 France, the world may have been falling apart outside Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo's (Louis Garrel) apartment buildng, but you wouldn't know it from what's going on inside. The brother and sister evenually ask Matthew (Michael Pitt), an American, to stay with them. What begins as a casual friendship, blossoms into a sensual voyage of discovery and desire. Nothing is off limits and anything is possible.
Off the top, I have absolutely no problem with the amount of adult natured imagery, or the subject matter of the film. However, by the end, I still expected something more. Let me explain. With the time and place set up, I kept waiting for director Bernardo Bertolucci and screenwriter Gilbert Adair to include more about world events somehow. The turbulent times are all but forgotten quickly. While it was interesting to hear the characters discuss their love of films and each other, you can't tell me that's all there is to discuss. In that case the era shouldn't matter then--It could have been set up as a 21st century story. That said, the movie is still very well photographed and the three young leads show no fear on screen, with their depiction. Green is a real beauty. As a film school graduate, the discussion of cinema was appreciated as well...I just wanted more charater development, which like the setting, is seemingly all but forgotten as things progress.
The commentary by Bertolucci, writer Adair and producer Jeremy Thomas is ok in the end. But the three men sort of let the discussion trail off at times. I enjoyed the 14 minute Outside the Window: Events In France, May 1968 featurette. It gives the historical perspective that the film lacked. Equally enjoyable for me was the 52 minute making of documentary. I may have had a few issues with the film, but, I still liked to see how a man like Bertolucci works. Rounding out the disc is actor Michael Pitt's cover of Jimmi Hendrix' "Hey Joe", the music video was directed by Bertolucci, and the film's theatrical trailer.
I can appreciate The Dreamers and the work of all invoved, I just wished that, the story had a few more smoother edges. Still recommended. *** and a half stars.
Rating:
Summary: An out of place, out of time tribute to youth in the 1960s
Review: I don't know quite what to make of "The Dreamers". How did a movie with the sensibilities of 1968 suddenly show up in 2004? Though beautiful to look at, it seems oddly out of place. What is a movie in this era of 'either you are with us or against us' doing here? How dare a movie suggest that, after all is said and done, life isn't a matter of right or wrong, but of shades of grays? And what is this vision of youth, not as a dumbed down, almost quaint part of humanity, but as a vibrant, intelligent force which, by its very essence, begets change? Haven't we gotten past such nonsense?Matthew [Michael Pitt] is an American exchange student spending a year in Paris to study film. He meets French twins, Isabelle [Eva Green] and Theo [Louis Garrel]. They quickly bond, and, when the siblings' parents leave Paris for a month, Matthew moves into their vast old apartment. Their bonding immediately takes a sexual and virtually incestuous turn. The adventure-seeking but ultimately puritanical Matthew is fascinated by the sensuous and all too worldly twins. While most of the story takes place inside the apartment, it is set against the French student uprising of 1968. Purportedly, this all began when the founder of the French film institute was fired. It quickly spread and nearly toppled the government. Young people today know little about this event, but, at the time, it was front page news. It was an era of disillusionment both in American and in Europe. The culprits were the Vietnam War and the debate over the value of Communism. People over 30 may have been content to twiddle their thumbs over the problems, but youth certainly was not. Brilliantly directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, the movie is also an ode to the beauty and power of film. The three young protagonists see everything that is happening around them in cinematic terms. Initially, this insulates them, but as the film progresses, it is their undoing. After all, as powerful as it is, art can only imitate life. It can not BE life. For thinking [God forbid I say 'intellectual'] adult viewers, "The Dreamers" may be a profoundly moving experience. For all others, I can highly recommend the sex scenes - not that thinking people may not enjoy them, too.
Rating:
Summary: Too Pansy for Me
Review: I don't know what it is about French films, but they tend to be too soft. They dive right into the love scenes with out much thought, but violent scenes like the riots are very violent. I think it must be French thing to be more of a lover than a fighter...but even the passion in the film is just not there.
Aritstically, the movie is well done.
Had the right ide but just sort of petered out in the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Without treading the same ground over for the 1000th time,
Review: I'll try to keep this short. No; not one of Bertolucci's best; in fact, it may be one of his worst. It starts out superbly, then slowly slides into a morass both screenwriter and director apparently had trouble getting out of. The photgraphy and imagery are OK; it's the plot, or actually the lack of one with any real depth, that ultimately sinks this. You get the basics early on; the remainder seems to be mindless chatter, or an attempt to shock. The ending is, as another reviewer said a little strongly, not only shocking but far, far too sudden. Absolutely nothing is really wrapped up, and it starts becoming somewhat cloying before that. Buy it cheap.
Rating:
Summary: the pleasure of decadence
Review: In The Dreamers, Matthew, Theo, and Isabelle live their lives immersed in cinema. Isabelle, twin sister of Theo, professes being born into the world in "Breathless". Matthew, the American student studying in France, describes a world of obsessive cinephiles who sit in the front to receive the images first, in their untouched austerity. Theo theorizes about Mao being not so much a dictator as a director, filming a real life epic. Together, the three are allowed the luxury of pure joy as they recreate their cinematic ideal through moments like running through the Louvre in efforts to beat the record set by `Bande a Part'. As this film follows these beautiful trio as they analyze, argue about, and act out their lives on film, they are allowed an independent summer to actually experience what true freedom can be. With the twin's parents gone and Matthew staying in the flat, the three embark into a season filled with what appears to be simplistic transgressions that are instead the true essence of living to their youths to the fullest.
When the three are faced with the possibility of their cinephilic passion being in jeopardy, they face revolution. Film is their source of reality, their teacher, their parent, their lover, their best friend. They may talk politics, but cinema is worth actually fighting for, and if that fight is a riot, so be it. Until the adult world tries to accost them into responsibility, until they are given a forceful fulcrum by society to rid themselves of hedonistic desires, their politics are cinema. Their passion isn't work, its leisure, their beauty, sex. They isolate themselves in a boudoir of passion, where they celebrate the beauty of the flesh and their human nature as seen through the filter of a theatre screen.
Alone in a sixties flat, a place so sublimely vintage its forever stylish, the trio lives out a pleasurably hedonistic lifestyle discovering and indulging in sex, art, and politics. Perpetually unclothed, always ready to engage in passionate arguments regarding their true love of cinema, these three youths cover the screen with irresistibly alluring romanticism, eroticism, and beauty. Steeped in alcohol and sex, these enchanting characters volunteer to live a life in comparative squalor, with all efforts to avoid dullness, disregarding societal responsibilities for sake of being critical commentators of it. Actors here, while not delivering studied performances, allow these characters to be beautiful, and to reach the essence of their being, an essence of what it is to be a passionate youth, and a burgeoning aesthete in every sense of the word.
Bertolucci provides these youths with the proper respect in their beautiful transgression, allowing the camera to breathe in their skin with the utmost appreciation for the natural beauty of it. Shot choice remains close but never claustrophobic, and the camera is allowed to drift smoothly through the apartment, giving the viewer the affect of gliding upon air while following along this whimsical summer. The film is photographed in a most beautiful manner, with rich tones of olive, rust, and complete black, shot seemingly natural enough but so artfully composed colors are vibrant and each frame teems with breathtaking clarity. Footage from films discussed are often edited into the actual film, and the soundtrack is filled with sixties rock standards serving to accentuate the unflinching style of these Parisian romantics. Here is a film that appreciates film yet also provides a sublime addition to the art form, one that, while not perfect, fully comprehends the grace spilling from world of these holy innocents.
The Dreamers is neither pornographic trash nor a cinematic masterpiece. Rather, it is a film seen as controversial by many and most likely appreciated by those with an already existing and indelible appreciation for film. It is an exploration of decadence, a film which allows youths to be young enough to be devoid of adult cynicism and close enough to maturation so as to be constantly immersed in discovery of the world around them. Allowing themselves to succumb so fully to the pleasures of art, these characters romp about onscreen in an idealized form of youth, a state where discovery is constant and strong opinion the rule. Their time is a time of appreciation for the flesh, it's a time when the idea of film being revolution isn't so much naïve as it is the absolute rule of life. These aesthetes indulge in decadence with such unforgiving passion they allow the beautiful dream of youth, of artistic luxury, and of their own blissfully tragic humanity, to seem, for a blessed moment, eternal. The Dreamers is a lovely journey into the purity of artistic revolution, the pretty palate that is human skin, and the luxurious pleasure of youth, making for a film very easy to appreciate for aesthetes, decadents, and cinephiles alike.
Rating:
Summary: Love & Tumult in 1968 Paris
Review: Once past the excessive, graphic nudity, or perhaps because of it, Bertolucci fashions a jarring glimpse of three fascinating young people against the backdrop of the 1968 French General Strike, which nearly toppled the government. For the three principals, hedonism, narcissism, and intoxication seem to dominate against what appear as lightly held political beliefs - socialism, love, compassion, tolerance. For example, siblings Theo and Isabelle sleep together naked, their sculpted bodies entwined. The All-American Matthew (well played by Michael Pitt) comes upon them sleeping nude (and slowly grows to love them), gathering some deeper yet perplexing knowledge. This learning process for Matthew weaves its way throughout the film: a likable youth from San Diego doing his best to slip into the idiosyncratic lives of these very French '60s eccentrics and their almost invisible, '60s uptight parents. Bertolucci abruptly intercuts continuously with memorable past film scenes: for example, Garbo's soulful eyes laughing at Gilbert's insipid love from "Queen Christina." There are many of these lovely, thoughtful old film scenes that weld the humanity of these three characters to that of past lovers and haters. I found myself virtually loathing the insouciance of Theo and Isabelle, their adolescent adoration of things kitsch, such as Delacroix's 'Liberty Leading the People" with Liberty's face that of Marilyn Monroe. All this while exchanging drunk, violent words over politics, cinema and ragout when true fighters faced the formidable barricades in the streets of Paris. But this is a film, I think, that one must settle into. Much of the first half appears about nothing much, perhaps a light titillating comedy. Slowly, we understand it is not that at all. The nudity, arguments, sex, politics, brilliant film cuts, and memorable period scoring give satisfaction to those of us 'lucky' enough to have lived through that tumultuous time. Perhaps younger, less authoritarian generations will view it with more intuition than we boomers. One of the director's realized intentions was to impart with his typical lyricism an inner realization of why love, even silly vacuous sex, is so much preferable to war (the General Strike and Vietnam, here). The ending is doubly startling. But by then, the parts have become the whole, the trivial vital. The significant beauty of this film lies in the director's wise, consummate vision. Well worth seeing. (For an amazingly contrasting view of the same period, see "Fog of War").
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