Frivolity at NYU

The days of single digits are upon us NYU students heading off to college for the first time. Move-in is on Sunday. At this point I can simply just tell myself that “it’ll all be just fine”, and I have no doubt that it will be. I’m incredibly excited. At the time of my last entry, I was in a state of pre-packing hell which I am happy to report is finally over.

Well, that’s a lie, but it’s basically done.

I spent a large portion of last week doing shopping for the dorm essentials (trunk, bathroom cleaning supplies, et. all), and the last two days have been spent shopping primarily at H&M. You know that you’ve had a successful shopping spree with your mother when, upon getting ready to go, she doesn’t say “let’s go to the cash register” but instead sarcastically remarks “well, let’s go survey the damage”. I got some new jeans, some long-sleeved shirts, a striped hoodie, a fancier coat for those special occasions, and a sweater with matching button down. Let’s hope that the sweater wasn’t a bad idea.

At this point it’s all been sorted into piles, but it is still nevertheless sitting on the floor in my room. The next step will be packing it all up. I’ve yet to figure out how to jam it all into my trunk and my wheeled suitcase. We shall see. The bigger question here is how I’m going to inevitably get it into my father’s car. I don’t even want to think about it.

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I’ve been in kind of a movie slump lately. Out of my mini-trove of Netflix films, only one actually yielded an above average movie-going experience. That film was the Bertolucci film entitled The Dreamers. While I was definitely too young to see it when it came out, I faintly recall all the controversy that surrounded it when it was released because it was the first major studio film in awhile to be slapped with an NC-17 rating. Many labeled this film as “artsy porn” and claimed that the film didn’t have much value to it at all, but I couldn’t disagree more. The film revolves around an American film buff, Matthew, (Michael Pitt) who comes to France as a college student. He meets twins Theo and Isabelle (Louis Garrel and Eva Green), and eventually accepts their offer to move into their parent’s apartment whilst their parents are on vacation. It soon becomes apparent that Theo and Isabelle have an, “ahem”, unhealthy sibling relationship, and soon the twins persuade Matthew into a decadent game of film-based dares.

As I mentioned before, this film got simultaneously praised and slammed by the critics, the latter group claiming that the film was pretentious and simply pornographic. This simply, in this viewer’s opinion, not true.

The Dreamers is an undeniably sexual film. The three main characters are seen naked for large portions of the film’s running time, and there is a lot of sexual material that would probably offend most people. That being said, you have no business watching this if you’re easily shocked..at all. The sex scenes in this were all very tastefully filmed, and I would definitely not say that this film was pornographic at all. Racy, yes. Porn, no.

However, I could see how some people could view this as a pretentious “dirty art film”. To fully appreciate The Dreamers, one really has to have a background in non-mainstream film. Throughout the film the characters act out various scenes from classic films (most of them being from the French New Wave or other European offerings) as the original is also played out on screen. If you don’t know films like Breathless or Bande a part, this film is kind of like watching a sequel to a film that you’ve never seen before. If you cannot understand the character’s love of film which is portrayed in this manner, all you’re left with is the sex scenes.

This film isn’t simply a film about sex (though that is a large part of it). It’s a film about the love of cinema as well. As one reviewer on Facebook (of all places) put it, this film is about how we “fetishize film, and how it does the same right back to us”. I like that idea, though I’m honestly not exactly sure how I could elaborate on it. Oh well, another journal entry, another time.

The film’s cinematography is also great, as expected from Bertolucci. The Parisian scenery is amazing, and there are many little moments in the film which are especially beautiful to behold. This beautiful cinematography also tones down the explicit nature of the sex scenes as well, which makes this film shift more towards “art” than towards “porn”. The camera doesn’t always linger on anything graphic, but when it does it does seem undeniably voyeuristic, but not in a perverse way. What needs to be shown is shown.

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I also saw Pineapple Express last week. Stupid, stupid, STUPID comedy. That being said, it was hilarious and I loved every minute of it.

Expect another update after move-in, or maybe before I leave.