What Dreams May Come (1998) is one of the most beautiful pieces of cinema in terms of its story revealing who we are, characters that so endearing that you think you may know them, and visuals that exceed any vision put on screen. It is directed by Vincent Ward who also directed Map of the Human Heart (1992). His artistic background guides the powerful vision of this story. The screenplay is by Ronald Bass, the writer of Rain Man (1988), based on the novel by Richard Matheson. The writer’s work was also turned into the film I Am Legend (2007) and he is well known for some iconic episodes of Twilight Zone. The novel is a bit New Age-y, but touches upon the world of the afterlife.
It opens to sloshing water and open air, gentle sounds, when we see a medium shot of Chris Nielsen (Robin Williams) in a white sweater laying down in a boat in a lake. This is my favorite part for Robin Williams, it contains his humor, but also a strength to fight, a gentleness, and compassion that I think embodied him. Another boat with a red sail bumps into his boat. The woman in the boat is Annie Collins (Annabella Sciorra). She is known for playing Claire in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992). Annie awkwardly tries to talk in Italian and then realizes that Chris is also American. She is also wearing a white sweater so we know the connection between them and also a red skirt like her boat’s sail. The colors of course symbolize the characters and the scenery is captured with wonder by director of photography Eduardo Serra who worked with Ward on Map of the Human Heart.
The soundtrack by Michael Kamen is great, hearing a piece of it throws back memory of the entire movie at me. They meet later on a hill above the lake with the sun pouring down on them. She sets down her outer red skirt and introduces herself. If you don’t understand why these two fall in love, then you haven’t learned how to be human yet. They get married against the backdrop of a circular stained glass window. She stumbles and Chris supports her as they walk down the aisle. Then, it flashes to Annie, years later, strangely it feels like not a moment is lost with these transitions. She is now in a green sweater, damp from the family’s play at washing the car. Chris tries to protect her in his blue shirt from the spray from their son, Ian (Josh Paddock), in a red jacket. Also, their young daughter, Marie (Jessica Brooks Grant) in a blue shirt. The two actors are perfect as young characters who are their own persons.
This blissful family moment shifts to a domestic morning where Annie prepares breakfast for her kids and Chris enters reminding Ian about his math test. There is conflict here in that Chris cares about his son, but doesn't understand how to guide his son to stand on his own. Annie is busy and has a friend drive the kids to school in a van. Chris sees his kids off, Marie pulls purple flowers from a Jacaranda tree as they pass, and Chris’ narration explains that this was the last time he saw them alive. Chris is at their funeral, two white caskets, and he holds the hand of his wife. We peer into Ian’s casket as he lays there, almost peaceful, this shifts again to “4 Years Later.” A young girl, Stacey Jacobs (Maggie McCarthy), is using chalk to mark a pee trail on a painting. Chris Nielsen, pediatrician, takes it in stride. There are x-rays, but Stacey gets constant headaches. He has Stacey cover her mouth while he takes a call from Annie, she has a “meltdown”, missing artwork from her gallery, and that it’s their Double D Anniversary.
Chris sets up copies of paintings and suggests them to Annie. He offers to pick them up and wants Annie to display her paintings. After the call, Chris realizes that Stacey suffers from migraines. It is a rainy night as Chris drives on a bridge carrying presents for the Double D Anniversary. He thinks back of his last words to Annie and then a multiple car accident jams up a tunnel. Chris rushes with his doctor’s bag to check on the injured. A woman driver is upside and Chris tries to calm her. A car is thrown into the air, it comes smashing down, and hurtles toward Chris before there is darkness. Paramedics are checking on Chris as he lies on the tunnel pavement similar to the opening with the boat. Then, we have the voice of Cuba Gooding Jr. asking him questions about what happened to him. Gooding Jr. was also in an iconic part in Jerry Maguire (1996). We see Chris in the operating room on a gurney. There is beeping. It shifts back to his home where there is a blurry image of Cuba’s character. He is not clear which looks like Annie's painting, but this has to do with Chris' perception.
Chris moves through his funeral and stays close to Annie until this causes her too much pain and leaves her. He wakes up and finds himself in a garden that is almost an Impressionistic painting, heaven, the colors were so intense in the theater that my brain couldn’t process them. He hears the voice of Albert Lewis, his colleague who was 63, now in the form of Cuba Gooding Jr. in white clothes. Albert says that people are uncertain about themselves and need a place comforting, Chris constructed his world from paintings which he used to convey his love to Annie. Albert is his guide to this heaven and how it works. There is the Dalmatian, Katie, that was suffering so they took her to the vet. Chris is taken by Albert to the dream house envisioned by Annie next to a lake. He opens him up to a world without the paint. Annie paints a tree for Chris that appears in his heaven. Albert explains that the tree is there because they are soulmates. Annie despairs that Chris will never see it and pours water over the painting. She doesn’t believe there is anything after death so she is left alone with her pain. Annie’s story parallels the story of Chris.
Chris finds other guides in the form of Leona (Rosalind Chao) and The Tracker played by Max von Sydow whom passed away on March 8th. Chao was in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series. She guides Chris to a golden city where souls move on. Chris ends up thinking about his kids and has to find them in heaven. Max von Sydow’s Tracker is an older figure found floating in a library. The film credits for von Sydow are legendary including playing Antonius Block in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957). He takes Chris and Albert from a boat in a stormy sea to the gateways to hell. His part reminds me of Virgil in Dante’s Inferno. In fact, I find the story is like a reverse Inferno, starting in Paradiso and traveling to the depths of the Inferno.
The threat of this hell which is a landscape of pale bodies and ruined shipwrecks is that you will lose your mind and give into despair. It is not a place of punishment, but one of regret and giving up. Chris has to travel there to find Annie and bring her back to their dream house. The visual effects by Digital Domain with Nicholas Brooks as visual effects supervisor creates worlds that are perfect vision of what would be heaven and hell. I believe that Robin Williams woke up in the Painted World and said, “Hey, I already filmed this movie.” Note this would be a perfect movie except the Hollywood ending, please see the alternate ending in the special features to get the ending more in line with the novel. What Dreams May Come is a powerful film about life, the afterlife, family, love, and everything that carry through it all.
Four point seven Jacaranda Flowers out of Five!
#WhatDreamsMayCome, #VincentWard, #RobinWilliams, #AnnabellaSciorra, #CubaGoodingJr
No comments:
Post a Comment