Every year, in the run-up to the Oscars, there is almost always an actor or actress who upsets the predictions. The 2023 vintage is no exception. This time, it is the name of Nicolas Cage that is circulating. And in fact, in the fanciful and very dark satire, Dream Scenario (Dream scenario), the winner of the statuette for Leaving Las Vegas (Goodbye Las Vegas) is bright. The film, wildly original, is also so. THE Duty spoke exclusively with its writer and director, Kristoffer Borgli.
Camped these days, Dream Scenario has as its protagonist Paul (Cage), a popular university professor, happy husband, fulfilled father, and who leads a very comfortable lifestyle. But Paul is dissatisfied with his lot. He would like to be published, celebrated, in short, recognized.
Recognized, he will be, literally. Because now a double of Paul begins to appear in the dreams of more and more numerous strangers.
“The character came to me before everything else, before the story,” confides Kristoffer Borgli, who is making a first film supported by the A24 studio, to which we owe in particular Hereditary (Hereditary) And Everything Everywhere All at Once (Everything, everywhere, all at once).
“I saw this guy full of himself, from a university background, in mid-life crisis and in need of recognition. At the same time, I read Carl Jung’s work on the collective unconscious, and I found that the concept was similar to a metaphor for modern life. I mean…we all now have, on a massive scale, parasocial relationships with each other thanks to social media. So we live in each other’s heads, in a way. »
The fusion of Jung’s character and theories happened organically, but with the addition of a third, more unexpected component.
“I love the movie A Nightmare on Elm Street [Les griffes de la nuit]by Wes Craven…”
For the record, a deceased killer haunts the nightmares of teenagers and kills them in their sleep.
“This film also corresponds to Jung’s precepts. And I asked myself what would happen if I partly took up the principle of the film, but not in horror, and rather in the context of our current culture. How would people, from all sides of our culture, react if the same real person kept appearing in their dreams? »
In the film, said reaction is initially enthusiastic, then hostile.
X-ray of the time
Delighted by the initial attention, Paul, who has no control over this dreamlike manifestation in his image, is disillusioned when he is held responsible, in reality, for the imaginary bad actions of his double. A favorite for a time, he becomes persona non grata.
Here the film touches on cancel culture (cancel culture), through satire.
“I wanted the film to be a bit of an x-ray of the current era. An era where we tend to impose a single model of thought, the equivalent of a “one size fits all”, depending on the camp in which we are, for complex questions, sometimes abstract, even surreal as in the film. There is now something of a manual under which the topic of the day will be dissected. My goal was for Paul’s journey to highlight these diktats. »
However, Kristoffer Borgli does not pose as a denouncer of this culture of cancellation: on the contrary, he ridicules the rhetoric of the opposing camp with the same verve. No preferential treatment left or right. And the center? Which center?
“The culture wars [culture wars] come together, with each faction clashing to determine whether Paul — or more accurately the image of Paul — appearing in people’s dreams is good or bad. These two antagonistic factions in the debate are, in themselves, veritable industries. »
The nuances and contradictions raised in the film are all the more interesting (and often comical) as Paul is presented in all his failings as a “privileged, unconscious heterosexual white man”. He is not a heroic figure, but an antiheroic one.
Buñuel’s influence
That being said, Kristoffer Borgli does not take his film too seriously, using sardonic humor and punctuating Paul’s unusual journey with surrealist passages that Luis Buñuel would not have denied.
“I happily take the reference to Buñuel: he is one of my idols. His rather unique dream logic was a natural influence. »
In this case, the tone of the film constantly evolves: we are first in the realistic comedy of manners, then in the fanciful fable, then in a surprisingly poignant human drama…
“I admit that it comes from an intuitive approach: it wasn’t thoughtful on my part, but yes, it’s undeniable that the film is in constant metamorphosis. We go from light to darkness, both on a humorous level and on a human level. The laughter can be frank, then reflect discomfort…”
After a pause, Kristoffer Borgli concludes: “At its core, it’s a sad story about a sad character. And it is not so unusual: many of us do not appreciate our luck, do not appreciate the happiness that is right under our noses. »
Mind you, and the film proves it repeatedly, just because it’s sad doesn’t mean it’s not funny.
The film Dream Scenario comes out in Montreal on November 24, and elsewhere in Quebec on November 1er December.