‘Dreams’ has no illusions about the immigrant experience
The personal and political dance together in intense drama
“Dreams” is about two people, and two countries. The danger is that one will overwhelm the other, that writer-director Michel Franco’s political points about the relationship between the United States and Mexico will overwhelm the personal drama. Or that the focus on the torrid affair between a wealthy American philanthropist (Jessica Chastain) and a Mexican ballet dancer (Isaac Fernandez) will turn the political undertones into mere window dressing.
But, fittingly for a film with so much ballet in it, the person and political move together in “Dreams” in an uneasy but gripping dance, buoyed by the strong, layered performances of its two leads.
“Dreams” (oof, terrible title) opens with a long shot of a trailer truck parked by the side of the road in the dark of night. We hear muffled cries for help from inside, and eventually the back is opened to reveal that it’s packed with people, crossing illegally into America.
One of them is Fernando (Hernandez), and the first 10 minutes of the movie are almost dialogue-free as we follow his long journey across the border and into the United States. It’s a dispiritingly familiar one – until Fernando arrives in a tony San Francisco neighborhood, enters a gorgeous apartment. When he’s discovered by the apartment’s owner, Jennifer (Chastain), they immediately fall into bed, one of several torrid sex scenes in the film.
Chastain effectively conveys Jennifer’s ingrained sense of privilege as well as the intensity of her fixation on Fernando. She genuinely doesn’t understand why Fernando would want more for himself than to live secretly in her gilded cage.
Franco deliberately keeps the exposition of their relationship as spare as possible (some scenes I think are flashbacks, but there’s really no confirmation of that). But the gist is that Jennifer works for the foundation run by her wealthy father (Marshall Bell), focusing on philanthropic projects in Mexico. One of those is a ballet academy in Mexico City, where apparently Jennifer and Fernando met and hit it off.
Now Fernando is in America, hoping to join the San Francisco Ballet Company. And while Jennifer is sexually obsessed with the young dancer half her age, she’s uneasy about their relationship being public. It’s telling that, although Jennifer supports Mexican projects, frequently travels to Mexico and has fallen for a Mexican dancer, she doesn’t speak a word of Spanish.
She’s the embodiment of the well-meaning, paternalistic American, happy to help as long as her supremacy in the relationship isn’t questioned. Franco’s screenplay doesn’t really tell us why Jennifer is so uncomfortable about being seen as Fernando’s equal, but Chastain effectively conveys Jennifer’s ingrained sense of privilege as well as the intensity of her fixation on Fernando. She genuinely doesn’t understand why Fernando would want more for himself than to live secretly in her gilded cage.
“Dreams” was made before the current era, where the barbarity and cruelty of how America treats immigrants became so undeniable, but it taps into the inequality in that relationship that has always been at the core even in better times. Fernando is valued for his talent and his service, for what he can provide to Jennifer and for America, not for himself as a human being. As Jennifer’s father gently chastises her, “I’m glad you help immigrants. But there are limits.”
Franco keeps this increasingly fraught relationship at a chilly remove from the audience, shooting in medium and long shots so we can see how the characters move about the frame, much as we watch Fernando and the other dancers move about the stage. This technique builds tension as Fernando and Jennifer’s relationship continues to deteriorate, each trying to get the upper hand over the other.
We sense this is going to end badly, but we don’t know how, and the ending of “Dreams” is both a shocking and completely fitting one.
“Dreams” is now playing in theaters. In Madison, it’s playing at AMC Fitchburg 18 and Marcus Point.