Dreams (1955)

Not rated, but once again, Ingmar Bergman makes a movie about adultery.  There is some mild (I can't believe I'm writing this) domestic abuse in the movie.  Also, someone calls someone else a mean word.  There's also the implication that one of the characters is suicidal.  Tonally, it's more slow than it is upsetting.  But that's the long and short of the whole movie.

DIRECTOR:  Ingmar Bergman

There's no way I'm getting this done today.  I'm way too distracted.  My motivation is in the toilet.  Yet, I'm powering through everything as if my life depended on it.  Maybe I should be complimenting myself on my willpower.  After all, here I am, writing about a Bergman movie that is kind of blending in with all of the other Bergman movies.  Also, again, I'm not in the mood to be writing in the wake of the end of civilization.  So points to me for finding some degree of normalcy in the face of all...this. 

I'm going to be the guy who tries dunking on one of the most respected directors in all of the cinematic canon.  The worst part, the part that is bringing this out of me, is a box set which is meant to be a celebration of Bergman.  By itself, there's almost nothing wrong with Dreams.  It is another smaller Bergman movie, of which he made a lot.  The notion behind auteur theory is that you can recognize a director's work without credits because of cinematic technique, themes, motifs, ideas, etc.  I can definitely recognize the smaller Bergman works because he keeps returning to the same gosh darn well over-and-over-and-over again.  

To his credit, there's something incredibly romantic to these movies.  With Dreams, I have to give him the credit to tell these stories from the women's perspective, especially in light of some of these other movies that paint women to be awful.  It's not to say that Doris isn't awful.  But Doris is awful while simultaneously being sympathetic.  On top of the idea of empowering women is the notion that maybe love is more than something that is trite to be explored in a romantic movie.  The thing that Dreams does pretty darned well is the notion of yearning and emptiness when it comes to exploring love.  Women in a lot of movies, including Bergman's other works, seems like something that people are constantly chasing because it is the social norm that women are supposed to chase.  Instead, Bergman gives us the story of two strikingly different women and, using that juxtaposition, explores how they end up in similar places.  

For the sake of exploration, we're going to have to use "love" as the idea that they are chasing simply because they try finding wholeness in romantic relationships.  With the case of Doris, her immaturity (which borderlines on stupidity) gives her a perverted sense of completion.  Doris intentionally does not push herself into emotionally challenging places.  If anything, Doris's major crime is that she takes the easy route to everything that she does in life.  There are moments where Doris actively tries to redefine herself.  When Otto offers to buy her the dress initially, she's appropriately skeptical.  We can't dismiss her as someone who is completely shallow.  Instead, we see someone who is manipulated by capitalism and ownership.  She acknowledges that she wants the dress, but Otto keeps moving the goalposts when it comes to getting said dress.  It makes Otto somewhat despicable, despite having a handful of sympathetic traits to him.  He swears that there are no caveats to her receiving the dress, but he keeps dangling carrots out in front of Doris.  The reason that he comes across as gross is not because of his age (which isn't helping his case).  It's the idea that he employs his riches to manipulate a girl who is without funds.  He manipulates her into a place where she borderline prostitutes herself.

It's interesting, watching Doris embrace something that she initially is hesitant.  As much as I imply that she's dumb, she does have a wealth of emotion behind her.  At one point, she gets a little drunk on champagne and reveals that she wants far too much that would be considered appropriate.  The irony of this scene is that she's embracing Otto's request.  He asks her to be honest with all of her desires.  But when she says all of these extravagant things, Otto looks at her with horror.  She then states quite soberly that she would not accept any of these things because that would make her a bad person.  But she also is scolding Otto for even the notion that he needs to buy someone's affection.  Still, she does live this fairytale life for a while.  I've never seen Pretty Woman, but I imagine that there's a lot of crossover happening here.

But it's odd that Doris is the secondary character in the movie.  Doris could absolutely be the focus of her own film.