QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM BERLIN

Gorgeous balled dancer Fernando (Isaac Hernández), with shiny olive skin, the face of an angel and the perfectly chiselled body of adonis, and powerful socialite Jessica (Jessica Chastain), impeccably dressed to the nines and with the heroin-chic face and sex appeal, first meet in Mexico City. Her powerful philanthropist family is involved with the dance troupe to which Fernando belongs. But it is in San Francisco that their relationship blossoms, after Fernando crosses the border illegally inside a lorry, only narrowly dodging his demise.

Their relationship is largely constructed upon power and sex games. They challenge each other with lewd tricks. Jessica is particularly skilled at licking Fernando’s testicles, while he has a preference for pounding her vagina mercilessly, a very graphic conversation reveals. The two sex scenes are fairly strong and realistic, particularly given the sexphobia unleashed upon the cinema world in the past few years (Ralina Reijn’s Babygirl, a film about subversive female pleasures released just last year, barely features any nudity at all). There is real chemistry between Hernández and Chastain. They have a profound love-hate relationship shaped by nationality and class divides. Sex isn’t always a liberating experience. It can imprison those in a vulnerable position, Fernando is about to find out.

Jessica’s family play a fundamental role in “protecting” the pretty lady, while also ensuring that she is prepared to take the reins when necessary. Her brother Jake (Rupert Friend) is the pitch-perfect, cynical philanthropist and vigilant sibling.

Forty-five-year-old Michel Franco, a established filmmaker routinely dealing with class issues in his native Mexico, and who has now carved himself a permanent spot on the pantheon of world cinema, opts for a very austere cinema language. The camera is almost entirely still, and artificial lighting is scarce. Characters are morally reprehensible, and highly credible. Jessica is the annoying rich woman and Fernando is the pragmatic immigrant with a sheer disregard for the rules, real-life people most of us have met. In this sense, Franco aligns himself with the raw cinema of Ulrich Seidl. The difference is that he lacks the humanism of the Austrian director, occasionally lapsing into cliches, and often lacking empathy for his flawed characters.

To his credit, Dreams is a much more mature take on class than the highly acclaimed New Order (2020). Jessica and Fernando are far more multidimensional and relatable than the hopelessly nihilistic, gratuitously violent and noticeably unintelligent “revolutionaries” of Franco’s best known film. In New Order, most characters are beautiful on the outside, and ugly on the inside. Dreams is a little more subtle, and a lot less black and white. And while the film conclusion is hardly rosy, at least these people are given the opportunity to step into each other’s shoes (to catastrophic results, of course).

While openly political, Dreams is not a movie designed to please activists. Franco never proposes that immigration is beneficial to anyone but Fernando. He’s portrayed as an economic immigrant entering the US on a whim, since he could have stayed in Mexico City and pursued a successful career there. Yet he’s never repulsive. He’s by far the most charming and dignified of the two leads. And just like anyone else on this planet, he’s entitled to dream. The problem is that the machinations of power and colonialism have become so sophisticated that they can easily abort his hopes and aspirations. Much like a mid-coitus phone call spoiling your orgasm.

Dreams just premiered in the Official Competition of the 75th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival.