In The Dreamers, a young American in Paris named Matthew (Michael Pitt) is invited to dinner at the home of Theo and Isabelle, twins whom he meets at the Cinematheque. During the meal, the twins' father chides him for playing with a zippo lighter; Matthew explains that he was simply marveling how it fit so perfectly in alignment with the checkered pattern on the tabecloth. Diagonally, horizontally, even split in two; it fit everywhere, like a tiny puzzle piece on the edge of some grand, three dimensional jigsaw. Every way you look at it, connections can be found.

That scene is like Bernardo Bertolucci's acknowledgment that this new film of his is not full of immediate meaning, does not shy from symbolism, will not fit neatly in a conventional box; indeed, it's so full of energy that it would burst through any categorical restraints. It is a film about film, a film that equates cinema with revolution and revolution with sex and sex with all the trappings of being young and on the edge. Older reviewers like Roger Ebert have cherished the film, which is set in 1968, as a piece of nostalgia, harkening back to the days when they were devouring life vicariously through the movies; younger cineastes, like myself, may well feel that very little has changed.

Matthew, a classic case study in naivete, is taking a year to study in Paris; at that time, though, the advent of the French New Wave made going to the movies far more exciting than schoolwork, and Matthew ends up spending his time at the Cinematheque, watching film after film. It is there that he meets Isabelle and Theo, also avid cinema-goers. On the day that Henry Langlois, the founder of the Cinematheque, is removed from his position in the government --

Let me back up. The story is set against a political backdrop, one that I was unaware of. My first instincts after I saw the film (other than that I needed to see it again, immediately) drove me to hop online and discover exactly what it was that happening in France in 1968 that drove crowds to the streets and caused police in riot control gear to surround the movie theater. What I've gathered so far is that the removal of Langlois from the government was that proverbial straw, and what was a protest for the sake of art gave way to a full political uprising.

The notion that films could stir up an uproar of such a grand scale is almost shocking, and intrinsically fascinating in these days when controversy over 'The Passion' mostly ceases once the box office receipts come in. These were the days when Godard and Truffaut ruled the world, cinematically speaking; they would in turn inspire the vanguard American directors of the seventies, whose rise and fall would lead to the Hollywood studio system we know and rarely love today. The time captured in this film was seismic, the edge of a paradigm shift, like the onset of maturity in someone still invigorated with youth, which brings us back to the central trio of the film.

Theo and Isabelle invite Matthew to their parents' lush Parisian penthouse; their father is a famous poet, who takes a shine to Matthew's philosophical musings about space and context. The next morning, he and his wife leave for a month long business trip, and Theo surreptitiously suggests that Matthew move in to the penthouse with them.

The three, ostensibly students, spend little time studying and gradually less and less time at the movies; instead, they reenact their favorite scenes, speaking to each other with choice quotes of dialogue, quizzing one another with obscure pantomimes. The more you know about film, the more you'll catch the references, but even a cinematic virgin could hardly fail to thrill to the way Bertolucci intercuts footage from classic films; the scene in which Isabelle imitates Greta Garbo is pure poetry, one of the most graceful examples of juxtaposition I've ever seen.

The twins provide fascinating psychological territory. Matthew has already determined that they are closer than most brothers and sisters; they sleep together, naked, and although Isabelle insists their relationship is not sexual, their comfort with each other borders on the incestuous. Isabelle, winning a guessing game, takes delight in ordering her brother to masturbate; later, he trumps her victory and demands that she and Matthew make love before him.

They do, and at this point all the energy an exuberance the film's been building comes to a hilt; we know going in, because of what we've heard and because of the NC-17 rating and because this is a Bertolucci film, that there will be sex involved at some point. Mixing that anticipation with the love letter to cinema that the film at first seems to be is a potent mix; when Isabelle disrobes for the first time and Matthew joins her on the kitchen floor, their passion is so tangible that the film, already lush and colorful, suddenly feels like 3D. The film almost demands a second viewing because the climax (so to speak) of the first forty minutes might leave you drained.

The characters spend most of the rest of the movie in various states of undress, copulation and/or conversation. Unlike, say, Larry Clark, whose Ken Park went to ridiculous extremes in its explicitness, Bertolucci never lets the sexual content become exploitational or anything but natural. It's pure, in it's own way, and honest, and while Bertolucci's eye is distinctly male, it is not discriminating; there is just as much male genitalia as female. There's nothing truly shocking in the movie; at best, the sex is erotic and joyful; at worst, it's unsettling because these characters, sure of themselves as they think they are, are clearly on an almost obsessive path towards destruction.

Matthew, innocent as he is, falls hard for Isabelle, and she sort of does for him, and it turns out that she's more emotionally stunted than he is. After weeks of passionate sex, he convinces her to go on a date with him -- to a movie, of course -- and explains to her that on dates, you sit in the back row of the theater. Theo grows increasingly jealous, and all the while, signs of unrest stir in the streets outside the apartment.

The film comes full circle, in the end, although viewers who've let themselves be distracted by the all the flesh and fluids might find it inconclusive. Without giving anything away, what happens is that these kids get dangerously lost in their own illusions, and, in the end, cinema saves their lives. Theo and Isabelle then return the favor; Matthew, perhaps calling to mind Godard's quote about how film should not be loved as one would love a woman, that "you can't kiss a movie," does not.

Bertolucci, who is in his sixties, surely saw this film as an opportunity to take one more stab at youth, although I think he's simultaneously looking back at it fondly and furiously reclaiming it: it takes place precisely at that time when he began his own filmmaking career, and the characters are undoubtedly extensions of at least some facets of himself; indeed, to make this movie the way he has made it would require a love of cinema on par with Matthew or the twins, and that he conveys their passion and vigor so honestly suggests that, in his heart, he's still a young man in love -- whether it's with a woman or movies or life doesn't really matter, because for some some people they're all connected.