This movie is released in India on 5th January 2024. Directed by Kristoffer Borgli and helmed by Nicolas Cage. I am not writing a review, nor am I giving an opinion. I am merely recording my thoughts and if you happen to read this piece, note that you will have to form your own opinion.
The entire psycho analysis of Sigmund Freud and the others is dependent on dreams, specific reference to sexual dreams. Volumes were and are being written about dreams and its interpretation. They had believed that dreams are personal to every individual, representing unfulfilled desires. Let me not bore you with Sigmund Freud.
In India and other Oriental countries there are innumerable beliefs and interpretations of dreams. One of the best ways to know dreams is to keep a ‘dreams journal’. It is difficult to keep because we often forget the dream as soon as we wake up! Certain Philosophers of India concluded that our entire life is but a dream-Maya. It is the duty of every individual to see through the Maya/illusion/dreams.
So much so, certain western philosophers like Descartes even said ‘we may be living and doing whatever we are doing in someone’s dream’. Thus, the distinction between reality and dream is very thin, it is blurred. For majority dream life is different from real life. But few will know that it is impossible to tell the difference between dream and reality!
The movie ‘Dream Scenario’ has taken yet another huge leap into the unknown. What will happen if I hijack your dreams? What will happen if I can enter into the dreams of all other people? If this happens then the life & dream will become one. What I do in your dreams will have an effect on your real life. The ability to enter into someone else’s dream is to manipulate their sub-conscious. It means people have no more control over themselves. In this movie Nicolas Cage, unknowingly develops the ability to enter into other’s dreams. Initially, it looked great… powerful… earning new fame. When it turned sour, it had devastating consequences. It is a new concept to experiment with, a new path taken without knowing the outcome. The risk of huge investment on this movie and even greater risk is the risk of making Nicolas Cage to play the central character. It is damn easy to judge whether the movie is good or bad, if you do not look at the risk profile this movie carried.
I have enjoyed Nicolas Cage’s performance to the core. It is my good fortune, I would say. You can see the brilliance of the director Kristoffer Borgli and the inimitable touch of Nicolas Cage in every frame. I wish to ask both these great people – who told them that we dream in color? Ask yourself – dreams are never in color… they are always in black & white. I would have appreciated better, had they shot the dream sequences in B & W. Finally, I did not like the ending. It was left to my imagination, the viewer’s imagination. Personally, I would have appreciated two endings – a definitive one and the other leaving it to viewer’s imagination. I cannot ask for a better beginning of 2024. Thank you, Nicolas Cage Sir.
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
