Title:  Dreamers

Director:  Vern Wutzk

Date saw the show:  August 12 2007
Place saw the show:  Calgary Fringe Festival (www.calgaryfringe.ca), Alberta, Canada

3 ˝ stars 

Reviewed By: Emily Axelson 

Dreamers - PG Warning: Disturbing Content, Mature Theme, Sexual Content (Alberta-82:00 Drama, Vern Wutzke – Director S) Welcome to the universe of the perfect couple, Pam and Bryan, who are the envy of their friends. Tonight, all that will change as they enter the world of dreams, a place where their hopes, fantasies and nightmares will become REALITY. 

Through the eyes of their friends, Pam and Brian are the perfect couple. Good relationship, and always right on time. But in privacy, they have just as many issues as the next couple. After an argument on the way home from a restaurant, they go to bed totally sick of each other and ready for a good night’s sleep. We then enter their world of dreams. With them, we experience their fondest fantasies, and worst nightmares. The way that Vern Wutzk separated the dreams from reality made it difficult to tell which one was which, but it worked well because it caused the audience to think.  

Before watching this film, I was expecting something unusual, and interesting, based on the storyline. I must say, I was not disappointed. The way the director, Vert Wutzk separated the fine line between dreams and reality was executed almost perfectly. I was also very pleasantly surprised by the acting. The two main roles were delivered very realistically, through the many genres of the film. Dreamers has nearly every genre imaginable in it at sometime or another, including comedy, fantasy, drama, and horror; surprisingly enough, it worked.  

The only criticism I have for this film is the repetitiveness. I realize that the director was trying to show that dreams continue once you wake up and then go back to sleep, but watching basically the same dream over and over four times got a bit irritating. However, I like that there were all kinds of dreams, to add some variety. One thing that I noticed in this film was that all the good dreams involved the dreamer being in charge of other people, and all the nightmares involved the dreamer being bossed around or helpless. I thought that was a nice little touch to it.  

All in all, I’d say dreamers is a well directed, well written, well acted, and a very interesting film that shows how your reality affects your dreams, and vise versa. Props to the Calgary Fringe Festival for showcasing local Alberta filmmakers.