The inherent voyeurism of cinema ends up being both the medium and the message in Bernardo Bertolucci's fascinating new drama THE DREAMERS. Based on screenwriter Gilbert Adair's novel The Holy Innocents, Bertolucci's erotic new film revels in a heady mix of Francophilia, burgeoning sexuality, and political upheaval in 1960's Paris. Its real charms, however, are deeper than its plot. For THE DREAMERS is also a tribute to the power of film by one of its undisputed masters...and a paean to the passion of film lovers. It is for, and about, everyone who embraces cinema and its inherent falsity as a breathtaking glimpse of an alternate universe. It is about the discovery of the two-dimensional world illuminated on the silver screen...and the infinitely less clear world that lies outside the theatre in three dimensions. THE DREAMERS, Bertolucci argues, live somewhere between the two.

Dreaming may be new territory to Bertolucci, but the film itself explores one of his most eloquent themes: seduction. In a Paris on the edge of social explosion, a trio of young students verging on adulthood are seduced not only by each other, but by the construction of fantasy, the ideals of friendship, the promise of sex, and the intoxication of otherness. And, of course, by film -- in particular, the amazing classic and New Wave films shown at the Cinematheque Francaise under the direction of Henri Langlois, the svengali of Paris' young cinephiles. These movie lovers' 1968 rebellion against the closing (by the government) of their cherished cinema palace is construed here as a crucial turning point in Parisian dissent, foreshadowing and even engendering the massive political turmoil that followed.

It is here, at a protest against the closing of the Cinematheque Francaise, that our protagonists meet: Matthew (Michael Pitt), a lonely American student who has become obsessed with cinema, gathers the courage to talk to the beautiful Isabelle (Eva Green) and her brooding brother Theo (Louis Garrel). The two take an immediate liking to Matthew, a gawky, intense neophyte, and while their parents are on vacation, they invite Matthew to live with them for a month. There is more than meets the eye, however, to Isabelle and Theo -- the siblings have ensconced themselves in a private world of their own devising since childhood, influenced by the cinema and compromised by their adult yearnings. The three make their own rules as they experiment with emotions, politics, and sexuality while playing a series of increasingly demanding mind games.

Throughout the story, the three cinephiles reference their favorite films from the Cinematheque Francaise -- and Bertolucci matches them step for step, with visual and thematic connections made to classics like Queen Christina, Band of Outsiders and City Lights. A heated argument about the merits of Buster Keaton versus Charlie Chaplin is peppered with glimpses of these two icons. Bertolucci does not settle for mere emulation, however; as the characters slowly constrict themselves with the escapism of the cinema, THE DREAMERS begins to starkly argue the ultimate futility of the cinematic ideal, the insidious nature of film glamour and the danger it harbors for our real-life psyches. In a world where The Terminator is a governor, it is an important message...as relevant in Greta Garbo's day as it is in Julia Roberts'.

Bertolucci's two great masterpieces, The Conformist and Last Tango in Paris, were also set in the City of Lights. Having spent a large portion of his life in the city, the director has a fiery, incendiary connection with Paris, akin to that of Scorsese's New York or Stephen Frears' impressions of working-class London. THE DREAMERS is not nearly as accomplished as Bertolucci's previous Parisian efforts, but it still crackles with an intensity and passion that only comes from great directors in their most receptive environments.

Much has been, and probably will be, made of THE DREAMERS complex sexuality, presented with characteristic plantiveness by Bertolucci. (In the United States, the film has received the dreaded NC-17 rating, often a box-office killer.) As in Last Tango in Paris, however, the film's eroticism is the vehicle for an exploration of the fragile nature of aging and obsession. Michael Pitt (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Murder By Numbers) reveals himself to possess a disarming natural flow; even as the stereotypical 'innocent' of the tale, Matthew is never once condescended to in the screenplay, and Pitt gives him an intellectual temerity that is both charming and unexpected. Garrel brings a brooding pansexuality to Theo, periodically interrupting the character's quiet demeanor with startling eruptions of rage. He is a perfect foil for (and match to) Pitt's adolescent insolence. Eva Green, making her film debut, is the only major misstep in the ensemble; she plays Isabelle in a broad style that jars the viewer in a number of scenes. An actress of some accomplishment would have fulfilled the complex, intricate promise of THE DREAMERS.

Adair's screenplay is another stumbling block; written without a sense of dramatic action, it emphasizes some trivial moments and nearly skips very important ones. (The final climax has a significantly smaller payoff than one might wish for this story, and its opening scenes bobble for about fifteen minutes before the film finds its footing.) THE DREAMERS is best when portraying the self-imposed isolation of these friends, barricaded in their apartment hideaway. Fabio Cianchetti's camera work is reminiscent of Roger Deakins in its evocation of simple grandeur, and Jean Rabasse's production design is imaginative without being distracting.

The idealistic fervor of 1968 is a florid, vivid color in Bertolucci's palette, capturing the energy of Paris' social crystallization as a thematic metaphor for the smaller revolution happening to Matthew, Isabelle and Theo. As social rites of passage go, the menage-a-trois is not often seen as a revolutionary act...but in a world of increasingly puritanical value systems, a wider exploration of sex certainly finds resonance when set against the youth riots of the time. (It is interesting to realize that, in terms of sexual presentation, THE DREAMERS is significantly less graphic than Last Tango in Paris...a film made thirty years ago in a theoretically less enlightened time.) Bertolucci, like his confused and struggling characters, is reaching back to move forward, looking to the past in order to dive into the future. We must all grow up, and like Matthew, learn that the world is a place of constant change. Idealism like his may be misguided (or unappreciated) at times, but in life -- and in the cinema -- a brighter future is always just a sunset away.

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