Dreams (Sex Love)
With Dreams (Sex Love), Norwegian writer and director Dag Johan Haugerud completes his triptych on modern relationships in Oslo – hence the potentially confusing English title. What began at last year’s Berlinale in Panorama (Sex) and continued in Venice’s Competition (Love), maintaining a consistently high standard, has now reached its culmination with the final installment in Berlin’s main section.
Yearning for the kind of romance she’d read about in novels, 17-year-old Johanne experiences her first love as an unrequited crush on her new teacher, Johanna. To process and commemorate her emotional turmoil, she begins putting her thoughts and feelings on paper. Originally not intended for an audience, her writing takes on a life of its own when her female family members read and discuss it – first considering how the events may have affected Johanne, then debating its literary value.
The deliberate loop connecting personal experiences with their creative treatment – which, as the film acknowledges, may lead readers to live vicariously through fiction – allows Haugerud to play with meta elements and subliminally question his own work. Even in a truthful account, how subjective is narration in art? Does a responsibility arise when depicting certain types of relationships, such as those with an age gap?
Going off on a tangent, Johanne’s mother and grandmother also debate the feminist merit of Flashdance. While discussions of power imbalance are somewhat inherent to the teacher-student dynamic, the film never becomes preachy or paternalistic. It even makes room for a reversal of arguments when Johanna asserts that she never consented to Johanne’s interpretation of a particular touch. This measured approach provides a welcome deflation of a discourse that has, in many ways, become overheated in our own lives.
The blurring of lines between fiction and perceived reality is further reinforced by the film’s soundscape. The audience hears music only when the characters do. A classical theme, initially mistaken for a traditional score due to its subtle way of adding pathos to a scene, is revealed to be diegetic when a character asks for it to be turned down. As a loudspeaker is switched off, the soft strings fall silent.
While Oslo’s diverse infrastructure plays a crucial visual role throughout the trilogy, Dreams focuses on a variety of staircases: the ups and downs reflecting the protagonist’s contrasting emotions, the way a landing can be difficult to gauge from the bottom, and, in Johanne’s grandmother’s case, the biblical connotation of her ascent up a steep flight of steps. True to the film’s title, the cinematography adopts a more subjective perspective than in the previous chapters of the series, seeking immersive ways to capture the characters’ inner lives – mostly through warm hues.
Shortly after the opening title, an enrapturing close-up captures Johanne’s face as she reads. A zoom-in on the window behind her, paired with a focus pull, then reveals her family outside the cabin, exploring the frozen lake. There is only the slightest physical distance between them, yet they are worlds apart – the young protagonist is with the story’s characters in Paris, fully immersed and radiating warmth. Johanna’s arrival in Johanne’s life is bathed in sunlight flooding through the windows of her classroom, to the point where the rays nearly distort her image – a crush, viewed only through the brightest colors, which may not reflect what they truly are.
With its compelling mix of fresh faces and seasoned actors, the film is filled with sensitive, down-to-earth performances that create a palpable sense of intimacy. The dynamic that different generations bring to each part of the story truly elevates the subject matter.
Dreams is not only an inspiring and optimistic conclusion to a heartfelt trilogy about the complexities of human desires but also a stunning contribution to the evolving landscape of Norwegian cinema.
Selina Sondermann
Dreams (Sex Love) (Drømmer) does not have a release date yet.
Read more reviews from our Berlin Film Festival coverage here.
For further information about the event visit the Berlin Film Festival website here.
Watch the trailer for Dreams (Sex Love) here:
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