The film opens on people—hundreds of people. They’re crowded together in an unidentified public place, and they aren’t like us. They’re in grainy, black-and-white film and they clearly belong to another era, perhaps another country. The only thing we can safely assume is that we are seeing a moment of history, recorded on film, and that history was full of people, each one as real as one of us. Collapsing the gap between an ossified past and the “modern” world is one of the goals of Dreams Rewired, a cinematic essay on the evolution of technology.
Austrian and German directors Manu Luksch, Martin Reinhart, Thomas Tode assembled nearly 200 archival film clips to make Dreams, blending fiction, journalism, politics and entertainment. The visual collage is paired with narration from Tilda Swinton, which touches on such lofty themes as Time, Geography and the vagaries of human connection. “The natural order of time is destroyed,” she declares, “The world has a new rhythm.” It makes for a thoroughly interesting though imperfect film, making pronouncements when it should be asking questions and providing interpretations when visuals alone can speak for themselves.
Comprised entirely of motion pictures made between the 1880s and 1930s, Dreams makes for an incredible recreation of the past. It is fascinating to see that which has existed before: the clothes people wore; the objects they carried; the faces they made. It reminds one of Roland Barthes when he wrote in his seminal Camera Lucida, “Always the Photograph astonishes me.” For Barthes, that great French theorist, “Photography has something to do with resurrection.” Indeed, Dreams Rewired uses early image technologies to bring history back to vivid life. The people on screen are relics of another century and yet so full of vitality. If they’re small or blurry, that only adds to their mystique.
Dreams includes footage from established celebrities such as Sergei Eisenstein, Thomas Edison, Dziga Vertov, René Clair and Charlie Chaplin, but it is dominated by those of unknown origin. Eschewing labels, Luksch, Reinhart and Tode let their clips live in mystery. It’s probably a wise choice since the inclusion text would have taken away from the poetic narration and the visual effect of the clips, which are spellbinding. Plus, the directors seem to be aiming for mystery. This isn’t a traditional documentary after all. It’s an essay, full of striking images and surreal ruminations.
Swinton, an actress already known for bold choices (I Am Love, Snowpiercer) and artistic exploits (sleeping at the MoMA), is perfectly cast as the dreamlike philosopher/guide. Her narration is full of grand statements such as, “Geography is history” and “The future is transparent,” and this imposing, essayistic style of storytelling is one of the films virtues but also one of its flaws. It requires viewers to suspend their disbelief because if we begin to question what it means that “Our time is Time of total connection” or that “Every message travels as an equal,” problems arise. It’s not clear what the directors mean by connection, nor is it believable that “Distance means nothing if it’s bridged by a circuit.” But Dreams Reworked is a work of art, not science. The hyperbole is forgivable.
Dreams has a message, and it’s a pervasive one. By showing the origins of today’s hyper-mediated world, directors Luksch, Reinhart and Tode intend to prove that our current tech-saturation was already happening at the turn of the century. In fact, technological inventions have been the primary drivers of our society. Developments in film, radio and communication are what caused women, workers and migrants to emerge; the private to turn public; the world wars to begin and end.
The film’s messages are large (too large), but its vision of the past remains hypnotizing. It is the rare, archival footage that saves the film from its own grandiosity. Swinton’s narration is interrupted only once, by the voice on an Edison phonograph recording. The voice promises pleasure, laughter and always something new to offer. “I never get tired,” he says, “and you will never tire of me.” The phonograph was invented in 1877. 138 years later, his words ring true.