The Dreamers 2003 Lk21 -

Set against the fiery backdrop of the , the film follows Matthew ( Michael Pitt ), a shy American exchange student who spends his days buried in the Cinémathèque Française . When the French government abruptly shuts down the archive and ousts its director, Henri Langlois, a massive protest erupts. In the chaos, Matthew meets a bohemian, enigmatic pair of French twins: Isabelle (Eva Green) and Théo (Louis Garrel).

Upon its release in the United States, The Dreamers was met with significant controversy due to its graphic nudity and explicit sexual content. These elements were so potent that the film received an NC-17 rating, which is the equivalent of an X-rating and is known to drastically reduce a film's potential audience. At the time, Bertolucci expressed his fear that the film might have to be cut for American audiences to avoid this rating. Despite the distributor, Fox Searchlight, releasing the NC-17 version without cuts, the film still managed to gross approximately $15 million at the box office. Critics have noted an irony here: despite the nudity that provoked the NC-17 rating, the film actually censored the homosexual elements that were present in the source novel. the dreamers 2003 lk21