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Sex in \u201cThe Dreamers\u201d isn\u2019t merely about shoving youthful abandon in our faces, it\u2019s a means of exploring the boundaries between fantasy and reality \u2014 sex, in a sense, is about finding a happy balance between unleashing your animal instincts and <\/em>performing for your partner. Yet the characters are completely blind to where that boundary lies, allowing their fantasies to consume their realities. Isabelle comes close to committing murder-suicide via a gas oven, but a brick that crashes through the window brings her back from the opera playing in her mind.<\/p>\n The uprisings of May 1968 are raging on the streets of Paris. Theo, in particular, is a vocal supporter of the protests, referencing Marx and other radical intellectuals when he talks about the need for a revolution. He may be cultured, but, as Matthew points out, Theo isn\u2019t out on the streets, he\u2019s inside with his sister, reading, smoking and playing make-believe. In this context, everything they do in the apartment \u2014 even their mature <\/em>activities \u2014 feels strangely na\u00efve and innocent. The siblings may think they\u2019re worldly by treating sex so casually, but in doing so, they refuse to admit their incestuous feelings for one another just as they refuse to turn their radical talk into real, on-the-ground action.<\/p>\n But then, is the dream of a revolution its own game of smoke and mirrors? This possibility stings, <\/em>because Bertolucci plays it straight. These days, satire seems to be the dominant mode for addressing upper-class ignorance and wealth disparity (see \u201cThe Curse\u201d or \u201cTriangle of Sadness\u201d), but keeping a cool, mocking distance sometimes fails to capture the passion, helplessness and despair churning beneath our layers of intellectual armor.<\/p>\n Fennell has cited \u201cThe Dreamers\u201d as an influence on \u201cSaltburn,\u201d which isn\u2019t surprising. Both are about navel-gazing young folks whose perversions are given free rein; unhinged indulgence; and the hypocrisies of privileged people. Oliver is a middle-class nobody who sleeps, murders and scams his way into a fortune by playing an object of pity for moneyed types who consider themselves \u201cwoke.\u201d As a class satire, or so \u201cSaltburn\u201d has been labeled, it\u2019s impotent, satisfied with poking fun at the snarky rich and giving us a mindlessly horny, disturbed hero for no reason other than it\u2019s fun and vaguely triumphant for anyone who dreams of living large.<\/p>\n The thing about \u201cSaltburn\u2019s\u201d transgressive moments \u2014 the grave humping, the bathwater guzzling, the buck-naked dance through the mansion \u2014 is that they inspire little beyond an instinctual eyebrow raise. Watching the film at my mother\u2019s house reminded me of watching racy movies as a teenager, a bit too eager to take in scandalous images without a care for what they actually mean.<\/p>\n That\u2019s certainly what first drew me to \u201cThe Dreamers\u201d when I was young. Looking back at it now, its vision of youthful folly \u2014 the way it entreats us to think harder about how we relate to the stylish images that shock and seduce us \u2014 feels evergreen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n