Dreams

An alternate title for Dreams, the final film in Dag Johan Haugerud’s Oslo trilogy Sex/Love/Dreams, could be “Visions of Johanne.” Seventeen-year-old Johanne develops a huge crush on her teacher and near namesake, Johanna — even showing up unannounced at her apartment in such a state that the teacher is moved to console her. A friendship develops — perhaps something more.

Cut to a year later. Johanne has filtered her heartbreak into a piece of autobiographical writing, which she shyly shares with her grandmother, a poet. Granny is surprised by the content, but she’s shocked by the quality of the prose. She tells her granddaughter she must show it to her mother… and maybe to a publisher.

As we see a personal experience transmuted into something else, something which touches on sexual politics, ethics and morality, the film accrues an acerbic comic nuance, and invites us to ponder how writing can be both therapeutic and dangerous, just as a love story can be affirmative and a kind of betrayal. This is a rich, absorbing film, arguably the best of a remarkable trilogy. It won the top prize, the Golden Bear, at the Berlin Film Festival in February.

Droll… a smart, sensitive queer coming-of-age story.

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

A sly, garrulous, mischievous piece.

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian