Film
Weren't the 60s great? Shouldn't we all feel guilty about being born 30 years too late? If you don't, why the hell not? This seems to be the overriding theme of The Dreamers. Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Telling the deceptively simple story of three young film-buffs holed up in an expensive Paris pad during les evenements of 1968, The Dreamers is an overwhelmingly good film. It ticks all the Euro-arthouse boxes with such scrupulousness that only Bernardo Bertolucci, one of the original purveyors of the subtitled moody continental, could have made it. Intimidatingly beautiful leads, made even more so by their uniformly superb performances? Check. Frank (but hardly explicit or exploitative) sexuality? Check. Reverent air towards films of the past, to the point of pastiche or even actually incorporating them into the film? Check. Groovy soundtrack? Check. Complete air of quality in almost every department? Check. Indeed, it is hard to criticise The Dreamers on a purely cinematic level; Bertolucci spins a web of sexual and political brinkmanship between his characters with such skill that most other films with their lazy clichés pale in comparison.
Where The Dreamers fails, however, is in its ideas. Its equation of the sexual awakenings of its various characters with the student activism of 1968 is clumsy, suggesting its period as a kind of year zero for our societies when in fact we are still repairing the damage caused by the 60s' supposed 'liberation.' The slogans painted on walls in the film are attended a sanctimonious reverence, yet what did they change? The student revolution was a joke; the silly little game of Paris intellectuals stirring up a French youth, longing for its Vietnam. Nothing changed in France or anywhere else. We still have governments invading countries at will, increasingly insurmountable class barriers (if top-up fees aren't these, what are?), complacent middle classes and a ludicrous system of taxation which squeezes the poor and lets off the rich. How can we look today at these bug-bears of the radical generation and conclude that the 60s changed our world? Hell, as Janet Jackson has recently found out, even the supposed sexual revolution is dying.
The Dreamers buys into the whole 60s tinted specs' ethos with such enthusiasm that the overall effect is like being stuck all night with an obsessive Dylan fan. Just as the film leers at young flesh with old man's eyes, its gazes at the whole period with an infuriating nostalgia, hectoring us into believing it was the golden age we all know it wasn't. If you love the nostalgia of your parents, see this film. If you want your own golden age, make your own.
The viewing of a French-Canadian film could very well fill one with trepidation: the Quebecois have never been the easiest bunch to get along with. However, with the rave reviews gushing out of Cannes, and a clutch of awards from Canada and around the world, this film promises something much greater. It does not fail to deliver on any count.
The director, Denys Arcand, brilliantly brings to life what could have been a pedestrian story line. In the hands of a Hollywood director one could imagine the horrors of cloying sentimentality seeping from the screen and suffocating the audience - as a dying man is reunited with his estranged son, and the friends whom he has not seen for so long. Here the sentimentality does not cloy, it only moves, helped in great part by the light hearted Gallic wit injected into the film, with discussions that would probably still cause an embarrassed silence in a multi-generational English family. In addition to these sometimes moving, sometimes comic scenes, runs a subtle, and mildly ambiguous subtext. The failures of socialist policies are highlighted throughout by the inadequacies of the Canadian health care system, and yet the capitalist son seems to be able to make the things happen that need to be done. Set against this is the idea of the beginning of the decline of the American empire (as per his earlier film of that title), which, as the embodiment of a capitalist society, introduces an ambiguity to the message of the subtext.
It is this ambiguity that in some way typifies the film, however, and in the ambiguity it finds its humanity. Ultimately it is the humanity, the blend of sentiment, comedy and the ambivalence of the characters, the acceptance of their flaws, and the love and camaraderie that is felt in spite of them that marks this film out. If you want to laugh, if you want to cry, then see this film. If you don't, then see this film anyway, as it will probably do you good.
Tokyo Story is not a film for the romantically inclined - I went to see it on Valentine's Day and its tone of resigned pessimism soon put paid to any amorous designs I might have had. This should not deter you from going however; Tokyo Story offers great riches in spite of the sadness that pervades it.
Its light-as-air plot deals with the visit that an old couple make to their children in the city. The parents have obviously been looking forward to this trip, but when they reach their children they are met with barely-concealed indifference. The only relative who offers them any sort of kindness is their daughter-in-law, who was widowed during the Second World War. On their way home, the mother is taken ill and dies. The children go to the funeral but promptly return to Tokyo to continue with their lives.
The tone of the film is summed up when one of the characters says: "Isn't life disappointing?"; this film is all about ageing and the inevitability of disappointment. But the film does not condemn: the impeccable acting ensures that you ultimately understand all the characters and come away with a certain acceptance of their behaviour.
It takes a while to accustom oneself to the static slowness of Tokyo Story - the camera rarely moves during a scene; there are long shots of tranquil landscapes that can be rather soporific. These are the director's hallmarks. But in his uncompromising determination not to glamorise or aesthetically distort life - to show it as it is in all its banality - Ozu dares to credit his audience with a humane intelligence that most other film-makers would never dream of. See this film and you won't be disappointed.
19th Feb 2004