Aphrodite, La Rêveuse de la Cinémathèque

"The first time I saw a movie at the cinématèque française I thought, 'Only the French... only the French would house a cinema inside a palace.'"

~ Matthew, "The Dreamers"

One of the most aesthetically intoxicating films I have ever seen is Bernardo Bertolucci's 2003 masterpiece, The Dreamers. If you're familiar with the visual sumptuousness of his earlier works like The Last Emperor and Little Buddha, transpose the richness of detail from the massive scope of ancient palaces and vast Tibetan plains to a finer looking~glass of greater intimacy. Instead of being set in a magnificently opulent edifice, the majority of The Dreamers ~ as well as its most memorable and controversial moments ~ takes place inside a classically high-ceilinged old Parisian apartment, counting down the days to the student riots of 1968.

I'm not going to give a single thing away, suffice it to say that as the raison d'être of the film is a rhapsodic love letter to the art of cinema and freedom of expression, the production values are tantalizing, the music perfectly evocative of the era (Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Edith Piaf), and the beautiful actors utterly mesmerizing and natural. It's a gorgeous work of art, and thought~provoking as well.

We recently broke down and rented both of Daniel Craig's James Bond movies, and I must confess to developing a great liking for them both. My special weakness for this newest generation of Bond has greatly to do with my adoration for Vesper Lynd's sharp character, played by the ravishingly exquisite Eva Green ~ whom I first discovered in her first film: incidentally, The Dreamers. (Green also played Sibylla in Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven with Orlando Bloom.) While returning Casino Royale, Videostore Chris and I got into a rapturous discussion on the wonderful merits of Green and her impossible cheekbones, and we both had to give kudos to her startling Venus de Milo scene from The Dreamers.

Here is the image in question, juxtaposed to the infamous statue Green's character emulated for her lover. So lovely.