the dreamers

Monday, October 22, 2007

Yesterday, I saw the movie called The Dreamers. At first, it means to me not more than sex, because it includes so many sexual frames. For example, there is a frame about making love which even shows genitals. However, if you shift your focus form the sexual frames to its meaning, you will find that it depict youth lifestyle very detailed.

The film describes the normal ideology that young people always try to break the norms or fight for their rights, which background is the French revolution in 1968. For instance, the two leading characters, twins, commit incest. Besides, they also take part in a march to oppose to the government about the law which allowed employers to fire their young employees under 25 years old without any reasons. They always question why they can’t do some things, why they need to follow the ways designed by others, who set the rules and who can make sure the rules are correct, etc.

Nonetheless, the director doubt that ‘Do youth break norms and fight against the unfair in order to make a progress of the human society and to build up a better living environment?’ The director points out that the reasons for them to do those things are not for our society, but only for themselves. In the director’s point of view, pretending to be revolutionaries can help youth rationalize what they want to do and be fashionable.

Nowadays, although there may not be young revolutionists, there are many youth who would like to break the norms. If we glance through newspaper, we can easily find those things such as parent abuse in verbal way or in physical way. Similarly, they would insist they are right by asking why they can’t do that, why it is so unfair that their parents can do that on them but they can’t do it on their parents, etc. In short, youth just would like to rationalize what they do by acting as a revolutionary. Do you?