Bertolucci's 'Dreamers' ride the New Wave

Sex. Cinema. Politics. Pure Bertolucci. Opening to critical acclaim and controversy, such things synonymous with the name Bertolucci, Italian director and auteur Bernardo Bertolucci has crafted his finest return to form with the new film "The Dreamers." Bertolucci, who infamously brought Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider and a stick of butter together with his "Last Tango in Paris," returns to Paris and his erotically-charged roots to explore the sexual complexities and curiosities of impassioned youth, caught in the middle of a cultural revolution. \nSet against the explosive background of the '68 student riots, following the firing of Henri Langlois and the closing of the Cinematheque Francais, Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" is a love letter, though bittersweet and twisted at times, to both the children of that amazing moment in time, as well as to cinephiles and film buffs the world around. With the Internet Movie Database listing over 20 films referenced, both stylistically and narratively, "The Dreamers" is most heavily steeped in the films of the French New Wave, the works of Truffaut and Godard being historically at the heart of the student movement, as well as the soul of the film. However, having no knowledge of French politics and film movements does not necessarily render Bertolucci's film inaccessible, but likely less enjoyable.\nMichael Pitt, baring an uncanny and, at times, distracting resemblance to Leonardo DiCaprio, plays an American student studying in Paris whose insatiable hunger for film leads him into the company of the ever-brooding Theo (Louis Garrel) and the darkly playful Isabelle (Eva Green). The children of a well-known French poet and his British wife, Theo and Isabelle invite Matthew (Pitt) to stay with them while their parents are gone. Residing in a gorgeous Victorian Gothic townhouse, the children begin an emotionally sadomasochistic game of sexual consequences and conquests, all the while waxing philosophical over Maoist Communism, whether Hendrix or Clapton reinvented the electrical guitar and the incomparable Keaton/Chaplin debate. Bertolucci's palette, working with cinematographer Fabio Cianchetti, is as lush as it has ever been, beautifully sculpting his images out of light and shadow, letting the colors drape the silver screen like royal silk tapestries. Furthermore, Gilbert Adair, who adapted the screenplay from his book, handles the pacing fluidly, allowing 140 minutes to simply float away. Bertolucci handles his subjects with a master's delicacy, allowing a certain grace and nostalgia to our dreamers and their idealistic naiveté which could never last forever. A gorgeously captured coming-of-age story, Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" is a film not to be missed.