The Dreamers
ドリーマーズ
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Paris, May 1968; an American student and cinephile twins locked in an apartment, cinema as foreplay.
Paris, 1968. Matthew, a shy American student spending a year in the city to learn French, lives for the screenings at the Cinémathèque Française. When its director, Henri Langlois, is sacked, the film lovers protest in the street, and there Matthew meets the twins Isabelle and Théo, children of a famous French poet and his English wife. The three bond over films. After dinner with the parents, who are leaving Paris for a month, the twins invite Matthew to stay in the family's large apartment.
Matthew soon finds the twins asleep naked in the same bed, and learns how freely they live with nudity and sex. The three race through the Louvre to beat the record set in Godard's Bande à part, and argue about Chaplin and Keaton, Clapton and Hendrix, and Théo's Maoism. Their film quizzes carry sexual forfeits. When Matthew loses one, Théo tells him to have sex with Isabelle in front of him. Matthew reluctantly does, and finds that she was a virgin. He and Isabelle fall in love. He asks what she would do if her parents discovered what she and Théo are to each other, and she says she would kill herself.
Matthew wants Isabelle to himself and takes her out on an ordinary date, her first. Théo retaliates by bringing a girl home. Isabelle withdraws from them both, then builds a tent of sheets in which the three fall asleep together, naked. Their parents come home, see them, say nothing and leave again, leaving a cheque. Isabelle finds it and understands. While the boys sleep, she tries to end all three of their lives. A brick crashes through the window: the street below is full of students fighting the police. Isabelle stops what she started before the boys know of it, and the three run down to join the protest. Théo falls in with a group making petrol bombs. Matthew pleads against the violence and kisses them both, and they turn away from him. As he walks off through the crowd, Théo takes Isabelle's hand and throws a Molotov cocktail at the police lines.
Starring
Michael Pittas Matthew
A shy American student in Paris to learn French, who moves in with the twins and falls in love with Isabelle.
Matthew’s story
Matthew spends his evenings at the Cinémathèque. At the protest over Henri Langlois's sacking he meets Isabelle and Théo, and when their parents leave town, the twins invite him to stay; he thinks of them as his first French friends. Startled to find them asleep naked in one bed, he slowly accepts how they live. Losing a film quiz, he is told by Théo to have sex with Isabelle in front of him; he reluctantly does, and learns she was a virgin. He falls in love with her and takes her on the first ordinary date of her life. When the riot breaks out beneath the window, he runs down with the twins, but pleads against the petrol bombs and kisses them both. They turn away from him, and he walks off alone through the crowd.
Eva Greenas Isabelle
Théo's twin sister, a film-obsessed young woman bound to her brother more closely than Matthew can at first understand.
Isabelle’s story
Isabelle and her twin, Théo, sleep naked in one bed and settle their film quizzes with sexual forfeits. When Matthew loses one, Théo orders him to have sex with her; she was a virgin. She falls for Matthew, and tells him she would kill herself if her parents found out about her and Théo. After her first ordinary date, with Matthew, Théo brings a girl home; she withdraws, then builds a tent of sheets where the three fall asleep together. In the morning she finds a cheque from her parents and knows they have seen. She tries to end all three lives, but a brick crashes through the window, and she stops before the boys know. In the riot she turns away from Matthew, and Théo takes her hand as he throws a petrol bomb.
Louis Garrelas Théo
Isabelle's twin brother, a cinephile and ardent Maoist who draws Matthew into the siblings' games.
Théo’s story
Théo argues with Matthew about Chaplin and Keaton, Clapton and Hendrix, and his own Maoism. He and Isabelle turn their film quizzes into sexual forfeits, and when Matthew loses, Théo orders him to have sex with his sister in front of him, and is pleased to learn she was a virgin. When Matthew takes Isabelle out on a date of their own, Théo retaliates by bringing a girl home. The three fall asleep together in Isabelle's tent of sheets, and their parents find them there. Woken by a brick through the window, he runs down into the riot and joins a group making petrol bombs. Matthew pleads against the violence and kisses him; Théo turns away, takes Isabelle's hand and throws a Molotov cocktail at the police lines.
Anna Chancelloras Mother
The twins' English mother, who leaves Paris with her husband for a month and returns to find the three asleep together.
Why it matters
The Dreamers is about three young people who close the door on the world and try to live entirely inside films, games and one another's bodies, while outside the windows Paris moves toward the uprising of May 1968. Bernardo Bertolucci films their sexuality frankly, and the questions it raises are real ones: how far closeness between a brother and sister can go before it becomes a trap, what consent means when sex is a forfeit in a game, and whether private liberation has anything to do with the political kind. The film was released in the United States with an NC-17 rating, and Eva Green later said her agent and her parents begged her not to take the role, afraid she would share the fate of Maria Schneider. The ending parts them. One walks away from the violence, two run toward it, and the dream of the title is over.