Matthew and Isabelle, lovers-to-be, literally spark when they first draw near each other. The moment is a wonderful joke, Bertolucci's equivalent of the scenes in old movies where lovers finally kiss and fireworks erupt in the sky above their heads. Matthew instinctively claps the flame out between his hands, Isabelle's own hands cover his, and, their faces close, they drink each other in longingly before she leans in for her kiss. Time stretches out, as it does at the approach of ecstasy or calamity. The film blurs and, for a split second, goes into slow motion, much the way our senses do in the seconds before a first kiss. Making her way to bed, Isabelle leans over to kiss Matthew goodnight, and as she does a candle flickering on the kitchen table catches her long, raven hair on fire. Isabelle and Theo's parents retire for the evening, leaving the three young people to themselves. One evening, they take Matthew home to their parents' rambling apartment for a dinner en famille. Matthew (Michael Pitt), a young American student trawling around Paris during the spring of 1968, is taken under the wing of Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Garrel), twins he's met during his nightly devotional sojourns to the Cinémathèque Française. Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" contains what may be the most startling first kiss in the movies.
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