Review: Sweet Dreams

“Fai bei sogni”, whispers Massimo’s mum as she tucks him in for the last time.

Literal translation: ‘Have beautiful dreams.’

To me, that sounds like an order. Be happy. Carry on as if nothing had happened, as if the person who was the source of all joy wasn’t gone. As if your unassuming childhood hadn’t just turned into a vortex of unanswerable questions.

The protagonist’s mother is the first in a long line of adults who pressures him to soldier on, but offers no help in overcoming his trauma. From: “Your mother’s in Heaven, she’s your guardian angel now” (a priest) to simply “Enough, Massimo” (his father), none of the simple answers they feed him have any positive impact on the grieving child. Even the grainy texture of the picture, reminiscent of the seventies, seems to suggest that Massimo is stuck in the past throughout the film. He never learns how to let it go.

The protagonist’s maturation (physical, not emotional) is signalled not only by the subtitles informing us that we’re in Rome 1992 or Turin 1995, but also with a beautiful use of television as contrepoint. Massimo’s first steps towards sexual awakening occur as he and the object of his desire watch Raffaella Carra’, a true sex icon for Italians in the 1970’s. Sadly, this first attempt is accompanied by bitter refusal. During his first encounter with the cynicism of the Roman elite, a news report in the background shows Antonio Di Pietro, who led a vast campaign against the corruption and mafia connections of the government. An Italian audience can’t help but compare the hope that he raised back in the 1990’s with the ongoing lack of transparency of our political class. As he grows up, every new discovery leads to a sharper awareness of how painful life can get. The climax of his desolation is enclosed in a single, beautiful shot: the 30-something-year-old staring languidly at a swarm of Roman youths dancing at a rave, their carefreeness far beyond him.

And suddenly it’s Sarajevo 1993 and he’s wearing a bulletproof vest. He watches the media make a spectacle out of death and sob stories out of pain. A few lines of dialogue vaguely that he’s become a journalist out of ambition and thrill-seeking, but he doesn’t seem particularly inclined towards either. He simply watches, still not cynical enough to take advantage of the horror, let alone to get kicks out of it.

Like most coming-of-age films, Sweet Dreams features different performers in the role of the protagonist, two of whom are children. As adorable as they both are, they seem to confirm the old trope that child actors rarely live up to their role. Perhaps their mechanical delivery wouldn’t have been so jarring if they’d been made to work mainly with their peers; but as they’re constantly surrounded by extremely talented adults, the contrast is sharp. The adult Massimo is portrayed by Valerio Mastrandrea, an expert at incorporating a persistent frown in his extremely touching performances. Mastrandrea had already played a character struggling to cope with the death of his mother in The First Beautiful Thing (2010). Unlike the precedent film, however, Sweet Dreams does not offer a bittersweet story of familial reconciliation: it’s the story of a broken man. I suspect that the atmosphere is not meant to be so hopeless, but rather highlight the power of little things in the struggle against the giant dilemmas: a genuine relationship, a liberating dance. However, the giant dilemmas seem to be winning. The sheer number of scenes that leave us with a bitter taste in our mouths largely outweighs the few heart-warming moments crammed towards the end. When asked to describe older Italian films like Life Is Beautiful or The First Beautiful Thing, I can’t decide whether they’re sad or uplifting. But Sweet Dreams signals a crescendo of bitterness in our cinema.