Dreams and nightmares make up the majority of our sleep, whether we like it or not. When you dream, you enter an unknown realm of imaginary landscapes, bizarre storylines, or a real hell that you want to escape from. Dreams and nightmares often don’t make sense and leave you confused when you wake up. For this reason, the ever-present fascination with dreams and nightmares has left us wanting to explore them, and they have become widely used themes in cinema.
Dreams, like our imaginations, can be endless, and this allows artists like writers and filmmakers to paint their own stories as real or wild as they want. From Alice in Wonderland to Origin as well as 8½these films best showcase the crazy things we all experience: dreams and nightmares.
‘Origin’
Origin science fiction film written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Next comes the Cobb House (Leonardo DiCaprio), a thief with the unique ability to penetrate people’s subconscious and steal their dreams to use against them. Impressed by Cobb’s abilities, a Japanese businessman offers him the unique opportunity to completely erase his criminal history if he can implant the idea of a person into another person’s subconscious; if he does this, then the committed crime exists. Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) serves as Cobb’s partner and assists in their missions.
When asked how Nolan first came up with the concept for the film, he wanted to explore “the idea of people sharing a dream space… that gives you the ability to access someone’s unconscious. What would it be used for and abused for?” which later became the whole concept of the film. The finale is perhaps one of the most talked about and discussed of all time: spinning top; are they still dreaming?
‘Source’
Source follows U.S. Army Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) who wakes up in a moving Metra (commuter train). The situation shocks and disorients Stephen, whose last waking memory is of a mission in Afghanistan. However, when he looks at his reflection in the windows and mirrors of the train, he appears to be a school teacher named Sean Fentress. Soon after, the train explodes and everyone on it dies. Once again, Steven wakes up in strange surroundings, only this time in the cockpit.
When he wakes up, Air Force Capt. Collin Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) informs him via a video screen of his mission to find the train bomber and stop the explosion before being sent back to the moment he wakes up on the train. Although Stevens initially believed he was in a simulation, he later learned that his real body was a capsule in Source Code, an experimental machine that reconstructs past events using, in this case, the dead trains’ memories. passengers.
‘Alice in Wonderland’
Alice in Wonderland brought the author Lewis Carrollfantasy story to life. The 1951 cartoon classic follows Alice’s journey (Katherine Beaumont), who spots the White Rabbit and chases him down the rabbit hole. She leads to another door, which turns out to be a magical world called Wonderland, where she meets a strange array of characters such as the Cheshire Cat (Sterling Holloway), Mad Hatter (Ed Wynn) and the Queen of Hearts (Verna Felton).
Things start to get out of control when Alice finds herself in court due to the tricks of the Cheshire Cat, forcing Alice to flee the place and return to the small door that first brought her into Wonderland. Looking through the keyhole, she sees herself sleeping. Alice wakes up and realizes that it was only a dream.
‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’
Considered a classic A Nightmare on Elm Street It’s a 1984 slasher film that follows a disfigured man who uses his bladed gloves to attack teenagers who were having sex in their sleep. It is later revealed that the mysterious man’s name is Fred “Freddy” Krueger.Robert Englund).
A Nightmare on Elm Street spawned a franchise of six sequels, a television series and even a crossover with Friday the 13th. The film is generally praised for its ability to play with the audience’s perceptions and break the boundaries of the imaginary and the real.
“8½”
8½ 1963 Italian surreal comedy-drama film written and directed by Federico Fellini. In the center of the plot is Guido Anselmi (Eng.Marcello Mastroianni), a famous film director suffering from “director’s block” while trying to direct his new sci-fi film. Anselmi has recurring visions of the “Perfect Woman” (Claudia Cardinale), which he believes holds the key to the story of his upcoming film.
Trying to find his story, Anselmi slips between fantasy and reality. In his fantasy world, he commands a harem of women, but in the end they turn their backs on him and tell the terrible truth about themselves and their sex lives. As time goes by, Anselmi finds the production of his film to become more personal and autobiographical. What makes the film so compelling is its turmoil, the balancing act between truth and falsehood, dream and reality, and other conflicting and opposing values explored in the film, all further supported by the striking visuals and cinematography.
“Mulholland Doctor”
The director is a master of surrealistic cinema, David LynchThis is a surreal neo-noir detective film. Mulholland Drive. The sole survivor of a car crash finds herself on an unfamiliar road in the Hollywood Hills. In a traumatized and shocked state, she sneaks into the Los Angeles apartment where aspiring actress Betty Elmes/Diane Selvin lives (Naomi Watts) will reside. Betty is alarmed by the appearance of a strange woman in her apartment. A woman (survivor of a car crash), suffering from amnesia and calling herself Rita (Laura Elena Harring) seeing the movie poster Gildamain actress Rita Hayworth.
To help Rita remember her identity, Betty rummages through her purse, where she finds a large sum of money and a mysterious blue key. In fabulous Los Angeles, Betty and Rita solve the mystery of Rita’s true identity. Since Lynch refuses to comment on the meaning and symbolism of the film, Mulholland Drive always required interpretation.
‘Life Awakening’
awakening life this is Richard Linklater experimental animated film about an unnamed young man (Wylie Wiggins), who questions his reality and experiences an existential crisis. The protagonist engages in philosophical discussions with other characters, ranging from topics of metaphysics, social philosophy, and the meaning of life. He later realizes that he is living in an eternal sleep (lucid dreaming) and sometimes gets false awakenings.
In a 2001 interview, Linklater revealed that he had the idea before he “became interested in film, probably 20 years ago”. and that “to make a realistic film about unreality, the film must be a realistic unreality.” visual effect in awakening life quite unique in that all the characters in the film are exact animated versions of real actors; wiggins, Ethan Hawkeand Linklater are instantly recognizable as animated versions of themselves.
“Dead Night”
When the architect Walter Craig (Mervyn Jones) arrives at a country cottage in Kent, he has a strange feeling that, despite the fact that he has never set foot in the cottage and has not met any of the guests, the place and their faces seem strangely familiar. Knowing nothing about their personal lives, Craig is somehow able to predict the events that will unfold in the house. After experiencing this, the guests begin to talk about the strange experiences they had or talked about. However, at the end of the film, Walter Craig wakes up in the bedroom when the phone rings, it turns out it was all just a nightmare.
The black-and-white anthology horror film is divided into different segments based on the stories told by the guests Craig met at the house: The Hearse Driver, The Christmas Party, The Haunted Mirror, The Golfer’s Story, The Ventriloquist Dummy, and the General Story. at the dacha itself.
‘Find shelter’
find shelter A psychological thriller that tells the story of a young husband and father, Curtis Laforche.Michael Shannon) who experiences apocalyptic dreams and visions and is unsure whether to shelter his family from the big storm or from himself due to the increased belief that he has paranoid schizophrenia. The situation gradually sours his relationships with family, friends, and even his employer, as he uses the company’s equipment to build his hideout.
The ending was deliberately left ambiguous for viewers because, according to the director, Jeff NicholsIt doesn’t matter if it was all a dream or reality. All that matters is that Curtis and his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) ended up on the same page again.
“Last Night in Soho”
Last Night in Soho follows fashion student Eloise “Ellie” Turner (Thomasin Mackenzie), who dreams of becoming a fashion designer and is particularly fond of the fashion of the swingers of the sixties. When Ellie moves into a country house owned by Miss Collins (Diana Rigg), she begins having vivid dreams that transport her to the 1960s. At the Café de Paris nightclub in London, Ellie meets an aspiring blonde singer, Sandy (Anya Taylor-Joy).
Infatuated with Sandy, Ellie dyes her hair blonde (when she returns to reality) and dresses like her. Things get complicated and dangerous after Ellie realizes that her dreams and reality are intertwined, and that Miss Collins has been Sandy all along.
Source: Collider
