Yet More Movie Nudity

The Dreamers

Awesome film that doesn't demean its brilliance just because of the sexual nature of its plot. This is basically a story about the 60's, except it's not California - it's Paris, France, and it occurs during the 1968 riots in Paris. You can look it up if you want more historical context, but I didn't know what the riots were about, and it didn't much matter, because the brunt of the story focuses on three characters who are pretty much oblivious to what's going on out in the streets outside their house, until the point at which they can no longer ignore it.

But the spirit of the sixties is here in full swing. Peace, protest, and free love are all in there. And the absolutely amazing soundtrack centers on some scorching sections from Jimi Hendrix and Big Brother & The Holding Company (with Janis Joplin, of course), with even a Doors tune thrown in. There's even a pivotal scene where one character sings a line from Hey Joe, as the song plays on the record player.

But what's the story about? Well, it's a personal story about three young college-age people. An American student/cinema buff meets up with a pair of French twins (brother/sister) who share a lot of the same interests. They get real close real fast, and when the parents leave on a trip, the three of them live it out in the apartment, loose and free. There's some tension, because the twins are "joined at the hip", as they say (no, not literally), and the American student understands that they need to grow up and mature and the only way to do that is to split them apart, so they can learn to have some individuality or something. It's complicated. But that's where the drama comes in.

Great movie. There's even a scene where the two guys argue about whether Clapton or Hendrix is better. There's also a lot of talk about classic cinema, as the characters are all cinema buffs, and the director himself (Bernardo Bertolucci) is a cinema buff who was there in Paris during the riots depicted in this film, and a part of the real cinema scene that the characters in the film are a part of.

I love it because this film is high quality /and/ sexually liberated. There's a great scene where the guy and girl have sex on the kitchen floor, for the first time, and the other guy (the brother) is making eggs on the stove, casually. It's all very real. The characters spend a good amount of time all or partly naked, too, and sometimes it's sexual, and sometimes it's not - which is what real life should be like.

I recommend this movie highly, if any of what I discussed here interests you.

9 Songs

I like the idea of this film. It's a story about the progression of a relationship (focusing on sexual encounters) interspersed with 9 live rock(ish) performances the way they would look if you were standing in the audience with a video camera. The problem is that the music is very uninteresting to me, and the girl was kind of a bitch.

The reason people are talking about this film is because the sex is not only explicit, but unsimulated - indeed, you see enough that they couldn't possibly be faking it. Some people argue that that fact alone makes it a porno, and other people argue the film's integrity for taking such an approach while still maintaining some sense of a coherent, artistic story.

The bottom line is, I think this film has some good ideas, but it's far (far far far) from the visionary masterpiece that some people are claiming it to be. I like how real it is - not just the sex but the interactions between the two characters and the concert scenes. But it's the content that leaves something to be desired.

Plenty of nudity for those who are looking - including things you'd normally only expect to see in a porno. But then again, there's plenty of sex, and most if not all of the nudity is sex-related. The couple actually get into some kinky stuff, including a little S&M, but it's not always terribly exciting. One thing I did like is how after they had sex one of the times, the girl stayed naked and walked around a bit. It's always bugged me when after a sex scene the girl gets dressed real quick, even while holding the covers over her body... You're naked, enjoy it, stay that way for awhile! Get up, walk around, quit being such a prude! Although, in those cases, I'll bet the only reason they get dressed so fast is because it's a movie and they can't afford to push the censors by having the characters walking around naked after the sex is done...