Arriving at the cinema today, November 16th, Dream Scenario, the new film by the young Norwegian talent Kristoffer Borgli, who after the dazzling debut of Sick of Myself immediately flew to America to make his third work with Nicolas Cage and A24, the coolest production around.
Kristoffer Borgli he was born in Norway in 1985, which means he is 38 years old. Since 2011, when he was 26, he began writing, producing and directing commercials, music videos and short films that have won awards and been screened at international festivals. However, his name began to circulate more widely and substantially when a Cannes of 2022 presented his second feature film (the first, DRIB dates back to 2017), titled Sick of Myself, extraordinary reflection on the disease of our times, narcissism, filmed with a grotesque fervor that brings to mind the cinema of Marco Ferreri.
Inevitable, in some way, that Borgli ended up shooting a film in the United States, where he had already moved and where he had made several short films: the success and impact of Sick of Myself were such that they aroused the interest of the coolest production company of the moment, the A24and one of the bravest and freest actors around: Nicolas Cage.
It is Cage, in fact, the protagonist of Dream Scenario – Have you ever dreamed of this man?branded film A24 that arrives in Italian cinemas from November 16th with I Wonder Pictures and Unipol Biografilm Collectionand which confirms the talent of this young author, as well as some of his thematic obsessions.
The story of this film sees Cage – a Cage far from the excesses of new shamanismand closer to that of films like The orchid thief – in the role of an obscure professor of an American college, a man with a good job, a nice family, a secure salary, but who at the same time is a somewhat grey, mediocre figure, devoid of particular character or talent, and who at the same time is a person deeply frustrated by the belief that he has never received, from life and from others, the recognition he thinks he deserves.
This condition of his changes, in some way, thanks to a very strange circumstance: first small individuals, then increasingly large groups, in his city, in America, in the world, see this character, whose name is Paul Matthews, appear in their dreams. .
This inexplicable collective phenomenon becomes for Matthews the way to obtain the recognition and popularity that he felt he was missing, and perhaps also the key to publishing a book that he always thought of writing and never wrote. But he barely has time to enjoy this success before his dream (his and that of others) transforms in an unpredictable way: so much so that, in real life, what was popularity becomes infamy, rejection, cancellation.
As in his previous film, Borgli – who in addition to being the director of his films is also the screenwriter – talks about the desire to be appreciated, but also about the hysterical dynamics of the community. Dynamics that are clearly the ones we experience on a daily basis social network come on internetper Borgli a clear and concrete translation of the concept of collective unconscious formulated by the second father of psychoanalysis, Carl Junga century ago.
To know more about Dream Scenarioand key film for understanding the dynamics of contemporary societyyou can read the review of the film written by Federico Gironiwhile below you will find his video interview with Kristoffer Borglicarried out in the days of Rome Film Festivalwhere the Norwegian’s film had its Italian premiere.