The director of
The Last Emperor journeys into the world of young sex and film in
The Dreamers, an interesting
though not overly engaging drama that gets its only major boost from its NC-17 rating.
The Dreamers follows Matthew (Michael Pitt, best known for Murder by Numbers), an American who has traveled to France in 1968 to enjoy film and experience life. Set against the backdrop of the student riots of that year, he gets a major dose when he meets a brother and sister that share his love for film, but have a very strange and intimate relationship with one another. As Michael gets pulled into their world, he begins to lose touch with reality.
Few people would know of The Dreamers and even less would care had this film not received an NC-17 rating, the rare slap-of-death that basically forbids most people under the age of 17 from seeing the film. NC-17 is usually reserved for sexually explicit films, although I don''t know what''s more damaging to youth - a penis here or there or the violence that is now commonly seen in PG-13 films. Regardless, The Dreamers does have a fair amount of sex and nudity, though really not much more than sexually explicit R-rated films. The difference is that this movie shows a penis now and again, because showing frontal nudity on men is so much worse than showing frontal nudity on women, right (note my sarcasm)? Okay, so I don''t really want to see penises, but does this movie really deserve an NC-17 rating? On the other hand, does showing penises really add to the film?