Film Name: 梦想情景 / Dream Scenario
We are in an era controlled by social media, where modern people need to present themselves, share their interests and daily stories on various online platforms, as well as capture breaking news in real time and make the most direct comments. A book, a song, a film, a celebrity’s words can become the focus of public discussion, theoretically, not only can all people freely and freely express their opinions on the Internet, but also to find a confidant from other people’s comments. What would happen if someone claimed to have met a strange stranger in a dream online, and you happened to have a similar experience?
《Dream Scenario》 tells such an amazing story of a mediocre family man with a tenured professorship who suddenly finds himself appearing in other people’s dreams. He becomes an overnight celebrity and enjoys bursting into the limelight. However, as things take a turn for the worse, he gradually discovers that this evolves into an uncontrollable nightmare of reality …… The film is directed by Norwegian filmmaker Christopher Bogli, who is quite adept at depicting the current zeitgeist and popular trends, especially the subtle influence of the internet, advertising, and the media on the modern man. His works are ingeniously conceived and uncommonly creative. On the surface, they appear to be young people’s stories full of absurdity and humour, but in fact, they are latent with observations on the Internet age, mockery of the media and advertising industry, and critique of hot cultural phenomena.
The hero becomes famous overnight, from a nerdy professor to an Internet celebrity surrounded by millions of people. From the initial confusion and resistance to the subsequent indulgence, the story hits at the essence of human nature’s greed for vanity. After the nightmare emerges, the netizens begin to avoid him and launch all kinds of humiliating attacks on him, which refer directly to the most popular “cancellation culture” on the Internet – if you accidentally say the wrong thing or misbehave, you will be “cancelled”! “It doesn’t matter if you’re a celebrity icon or a big shot. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, and many of the celebrities who have suffered from it in reality have been able to make a comeback in France because France doesn’t eat up the “cancellation culture”, which is lampooned in the latter part of the story about the hero’s success in publishing a new book in France. In this way, many of the film’s episodes become an amusing footnote to contemporary pop culture trends.
Compared to the various sharp observations and reflections, the main theme of mid-life crisis that runs through the whole film is not fresh and prominent enough, and is gradually diluted in the discussion of the hotter topics mentioned above, and reduced to an itchy, self-motivated point of view output. This seems to hint at the plight of European directors entering Hollywood, where even the best creative and directorial skills are limited by external factors, especially in the case of star-driven films. Of course, it’s definitely good for Bogley to sell the star power to attract attention, and audiences have been focusing on the stars (Nicolas Cage, for example, once again delivers a human performance), but inadvertently letting the film’s core idea – “Dreamland The central idea of the film – “Dreamland” – is inadvertently dwarfed into the most neglected, if not the most irrelevant, embellishment of the film.
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