A Dream within a Dream

[bcholmes]

To die,—to sleep;—
To sleep: perchance to dream:—ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

I recently watched the movie What Dreams May Come (USA, 1998) which I discovered because I was looking up the filmography of Max Von Sydow. I really have no memory of this film coming to the theatres. I'm guessing that it flopped because the director hasn't really done anything since.

It's a story about what happens to a family after death, with a lot of discussion about loss and grieving.

The plot is a bit saccharine, but it was a visually wonderful film. The scenes of Robin Williams' heaven (everyone gets their own, it seems) are fabulous. And the boats in the Venice-like halls of a giant library. And hell. Beautiful imagery.

It's also a film that makes me wonder about the official religion of Hollywood. It just seems like every Hollywood film has a very similar picture of the afterlife: kinda Christian with a heaven and a hell. But also with relatively lax entrance requriements for heaven. And there's usually a reincarnation option. Reincarnation, I guess, has much more story potential than other forms of afterlife. (And Defending Your Life remains one of my favourites among movies of this ilk.

Comments

what dreams may come

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

is one of my favourite movies of all time, because of the marvelous imagery. i dreamt of it for weeks after seeing it. i have no idea whether it flopped since i don't usually see films in the cinema when they come out.

now that we have a DVD player, i should order it. :)

[deepforestowl.livejournal.com]

i saw this film in the theater with my mom and while the plot seems to be a bit weak, the visuals of it are just amazing. i love the vision of hell and the book stacks of course. hollywood does seem to shy away from non-christian ideas of the afterlife or of even religion. i thought the ideas about suicide were really interesting especially in their representation when she dies.

[medhba.livejournal.com]

it was a visually wonderful film.

it was very beautiful

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

It had a theatre run, but although I wouldn't say it flopped, it didn't do that well either. The overall opinion seemed to be, "Visually quite pretty, but lacking any real substance," and it got lukewarm critical acclaim (60% on Rotten Tomatoes). That positioned it poorly between markets -- not enough critical acclaim or implications of real substance for the 'arty' crowd, but a little too abstract and/or unexchiting for the non-'arty' crowd.

The production budget seems to have been $80 million USD, with the total US gross being $55 million USD. (EEP!) In comparison, Good Will Hunting, which came out late the year prior, had a production budget of $10 million USD and a total US gross of $138 million USD.