What Dreams May Come
USA/New Zealand 1998
Reviewed by Peter Matthews
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Chris and Annie Nielsen first meet in Switzerland. They marry and have two children, Ian and Marie. Chris becomes a doctor, Annie a painter. Years later, Ian and Marie die in a traffic accident. Deeply depressed, Annie attempts suicide. Feeling that Chris has abandoned her to her grief, she proposes a divorce. Eventually, the pair are reconciled. Four years later, Chris is killed in another car crash.
Chris finds himself in a landscape resembling Annie's painting of their Swiss idyll. He encounters Albert, an enigmatic guide who turns out later to be his son Ian in disguise. Albert explains that each soul in the afterlife creates his or her own subjective paradise. After Chris tries fruitlessly to make contact with Annie on earth, he expresses a wish to see his children but this can happen only when he is truly ready. Soon after, it is revealed that Leona - Chris' other substitute guide - is in fact Marie. Chris' jubilation is cut short by news that Annie has killed herself. Albert informs Chris that suicides go to hell; he will never see her again. Chris determines to rescue Annie from hell, enlisting the services of the mysterious Tracker, who eventually reveals himself to be Chris' old medical mentor Albert. In hell, trapped in her vision of inferno, Annie doesn't recognise Chris. But when he chooses to stay rather than abandon her, she awakes from her stupor. The soulmates find themselves transported back to paradise, where they are reunited with Ian and Marie. Chris and Annie decide to be reincarnated so that they can fall in love again.
Review
David Byrne once pointed out, "Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens" - so it seems a bad idea to set a movie there. What Dreams May Come does dip down to earth occasionally, but since the main character Chris Nielsen dies within the first ten minutes and the film's chief attraction is a digitally synthesised vision of his posthumous bliss, the chances of working up much terrestrial tension are distinctly slim. In the past, Hollywood tended to exploit the hereafter as a plot gimmick - a literal deus ex machina for patching up lovers' quarrels or kick-starting the phlegmatic hero (as in It's a Wonderful Life). While a celestial envoy might materialise to sort things, eternity itself was held to be off limits - figured by glimpses of the pearly gates with plenty of dry ice. Everyone agreed that paradise didn't pay off dramatically, being the mythical resolution of all human conflict.
But all bets are off in the new Hollywood, and amorphous plotlessness isn't quite the scandal it once would have been. Indeed, What Dreams May Come might testify to the widespread view that American cinema has relinquished its storytelling skills and is regressing to the more primitive function of supplying sheer spectacle since its uninvolving characters and sketchy narrative are the flimsiest pretexts on which to hang the latest in technological barbarism. There really isn't much odds between the millennial uplift of Dreams and the destructive orgies in Independence Day - both are bread-and-circus films triggering generalised emotions inseparable from detachment. Jaw-droppingly dull though this transcendental pageant is for anyone interested in suspense, it seems destined to strike a nerve at the box office. Awash with assurances of immortality, the movie hooks into the desire of audiences to bask in the glow of a pop metaphysics.
Compounded of notions from Buddhism, Christianity, Greek mythology and New Age philosophy, What Dreams May Come is at least an admirably ecumenical enterprise. The jumbled theology may have made better sense in Richard Matheson's original 1977 novel; but screenwriter Ron Bass' screenplay is commercially shrewder in enabling viewers to pick and mix. In the war-torn 40s the afterlife was commonly depicted as a great bureaucracy for the processing of souls. Maybe it isn't surprising that in the splintered 90s,heaven is in the eye of the beholder with Chris setting up perpetual housekeeping in one of his wife Annie's paintings. So you can take it with you after all, and there's no pesky God around to horn in on your personalised nirvana. Should you get bored with the uninterrupted serenity, the movie advances the interesting heresy that souls may choose to be reincarnated - as Chris and Annie do, just in time for one of the ickiest fade-outs in screen history.
In short, What Dreams May Come offers all the consoling advantages of religion and none of the contractual disadvantages. Bass incorporates the Catholic edict that suicides are damned but this rule exists only to be broken, as it motivates our hero's Orpheus-like search for his abandoned Eurydice. And in fact the eschatological order proves no match for the gumption of an enterprising American - whose trouncing of hell would appear to confirm the national belief in absolute self-determination. As he demonstrated in The Navigator and Map of the Human Heart, director Vincent Ward has a strong visual imagination but scant story sense, so he seems well suited to the film's loose framework. Ward employs lap dissolves, colour coding and associative editing in a kind of continuous melting effect meant to put across the idea that physical reality is an illusion. Indeed, the densely layered hints and undertones almost suggest Hollywood has made its first Tarkovsky movie - that is, if the net result weren't quite so stupefying. Unfortunately, special effects aren't the best way to conjure an ethereal atmosphere, since they can't help conferring a certain literal-mindedness on the proceedings. As André Bazin once remarked, cinema imposes its own irresistible realism, and the Elysian fields here are a shade too solid-looking for comfort. However, the fundamentalists in the audience should approve - why leave them out of this sweepingly latitudinarian snow job?
Credits
- Producers
- Stephen Simon
- Barnet Bain
- Screenplay
- Ron Bass
- Based on the novel by
- Richard Matheson
- Directors of Photography
- Eduardo Serra
- Editors
- David Brenner
- Maysie Hoy
- Production Designer
- Eugenio Zanetti
- Music/Music Conductor
- Michael Kamen
- ©PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, Inc
- Production Companies
- PolyGram Filmed Entertainment presents
- an Interscope Communications production in association with Metafilmics
- Executive Producers
- Ted Field
- Scott Kroopf
- Erica Huggins
- Ron Bass
- Venezuelan Producer
- Pedro Luis González
- Co-producer
- Alan C. Blomquist
- Executive in Charge of Production
- Michelle Wright
- LA Production Supervisor
- Angel Falls Unit:
- Christine Altomari
- Production Co-ordinators
- Gretchen Bryn Van Zeebroeck
- Additional Photography:
- Katie Gilbert
- L.A. Co-ordinator
- Davia Clayton
- Operations Co-ordinators
- Angel Falls Unit:
- Anibal Dao
- Rodolfo Gerstl
- Fernando Gallegos
- Unit Production Manager
- Barbara A. Hall
- Pre-visualization Unit:
- Terry Collis
- Additional Photography:
- Richard Gelfand
- Location Manager
- Christine Bonnem
- Additional Photography:
- David Mack
- Gerard Averill
- Post-production
- Supervisor:
- Graham Stumpf
- Co-ordinators:
- Lorisa D. Francis
- Peter Klemchuk
- 2nd Unit/Angel Falls Unit Director:
- Charles Croughwell
- Assistant Directors
- Stephen Dunn
- Tina Stauffer
- Rebecca Greeley
- 2nd Unit:
- David Fudge
- John D. Kuberski
- Additional Photography:
- Carla Corwin
- Derek Johansen
- Otie Brown
- Script Supervisor
- Carol DePasquale
- Casting
- Heidi Levitt
- Associate:
- Monika Mikkelsen
- Additional:
- Kris Nicolau
- Local:
- Nina Henninger
- Barbie Stein
- Group Voice:
- Loop Troop
- Directors of Photography
- 2nd Unit/Additonal Photography:
- Richard Michalak
- Angel Falls Unit:
- Josh Bleibtrau
- Angel Falls, Freefall:
- Tom Sanders
- Additional Photography:
- Kim Marks
- Underwater Photographer
- Rexford Metz
- Camera Operators
- Anastas N. Michos
- Kim Marks
- 2nd Unit:
- Laura Kelly
- Niagara Falls, Aerial:
- David Norris
- Steadicam Operator
- Mark R. Van Loon
- Visual Effects
- Production Supervisor:
- Ellen M. Somers
- Editor:
- Audrey Chang
- Line Producer:
- Denise Davis
- Painted World Visual Effects Line Producer
- Donna Langston
- Painted World Visual Effects
- Mass Illusions
- Visual Effects Supervisors:
- Joel Hynek
- Nicholas Brooks
- Software Creator:
- Pierre Jasmin
- Art Director:
- Joshua Rosen
- 3D Supervisor, Giant Killer Robots:
- Mike Schmitt
- Software Co-creator:
- Peter Litwinowicz
- CG Supervisor, Mobility Inc:
- Karen Ansel
- CG Supervisor, ShadowCasters:
- Scott Gordon
- Peter G. Travers
- Visual Effects Production Manager:
- Mimi Medel
- Lead Compositors:
- John P. Nugent
- Barnaby '2X' Robson
- J.D. Cowles
- Lead Compositor, DFilm:
- Tim Crosbie
- Paint Animator, Lunarfish:
- Edward Davis
- Paint Animators:
- Marc Toscano
- Talmage Watson
- 3D Technical Director, Giant Killer Robots:
- Peter Oberdorfer
- 3D Technical Director, Mobility Inc:
- John Volny
- 3D Technical Director:
- Gerard Benjamin Pierre
- 3D Technical Director, Giant Killer Robots:
- John Vegher
- Compositors:
- Daniel P. Rosen
- Chris Ciampa
- John Cornejo
- Amanda Evans
- Michael Ffish Hemschoot
- Grady Campbell
- Alan Boucek
- Animators:
- John Jakubowski
- Grant Neisner
- Claire Pegorier
Animator, Lunarfish:- Nick Phillip
- Animators:
- Sarma Vanguri
- Dan Klem
- Matte Painter, Pulse Imaging:
- Tim Clark
- Matte Painter:
- Caroleen 'Jett' Green
- Concept Artist:
- Richard Kriegler
- 2D Prep:
- Hilery Johnson
- Ingrid Overgard
- Jarmilla Seflova
- Project Manager Research/Development:
- Kim Libreri
- Systems Manager:
- Steve Ginsberg
- Visual Effects Plate Producer:
- Jennifer Thomas
- Location Reality Capture Supervisor:
- John Gaeta
- Telemetry/Survey Lead:
- David Harvey
- Laser Scanner Operators:
- François Herbin
- Emily Pensak
- Visual Effects Editors:
- Roy Berkowitz
- Anthony Mark Viverito
- Film Recorder Operator:
- Greg Shimp
- Additional Tracking/Roto
- Radium
- Additional Matte Paintings
- Syd Dutton
- Bill Taylor
- Illusion Arts, Inc
- Visual Effects
- POP Film & POP Animation
- Visual Effects Supervisor:
- Stuart Robertson
- Executive Producer:
- Andrea D'Amico
- CG Producer:
- Cheryl Bainum
- Digital Effects Supervisors:
- Lawrence Littleton
- Ken Littleton
- Senior Matte Artist:
- Deak Ferrand
- Matte Painting Supervisor:
- Rocco Gioffre
- Senior CG Artist:
- Yannick Dusseault
- Technical Directors:
- Barry Robertson
- Matt Hightower
- Digital Optical Supervisor:
- Greg Kimble
- Digital Compositors:
- Jacques Lévesque
- Brandon McNaughton
- John Rauh
- Brian Hanable
- David Crawford
- Ann Monn
- Brent Gilmartin
- Bob Wiatr
- CG Artists:
- Seth Lippman
- Sandra Germain
- Keith Kolder
- Linda Kurgpold
- Miles Essmiller
- Kirk Cadrette
- Associate Visual Effects Producers:
- John McCunn
- Alison Armstrong
- Visual Effects Editor:
- Caleb Aschkynazo
- Visual Effects Production Co-ordinators:
- Severine Kelley
- Dario DeGregorio
- Siouxsie Stewart
- Visual Effects Production Managers:
- Tom Clary
- Joe Stokes
- Mark Spatny
- Digital Imaging Manager:
- Pat Repola
- Digital Imaging Co-ordinator:
- Kim Covate
Scanning/Recording Technicians:- Ed Thompson
- Brian Begun
- Data Wrangler:
- Kelly Bumbarger
- Executive Vice President, POP Film & Animation:
- Jeff Ross
- Special Visual Effects/Digital Animation
- Digital Domain
- Visual Effects Supervisor:
- Kevin Mack
- Visual Effects Producer:
- Dean A. Wright
- Digital Compositing Supervisor:
- Carey G. Villegas
- Data Integration Supervisor:
- Michael C. O'Neal
- Data Integration:
- Candida L. Nunez
- Lead Compositor:
- Claas Henke
- Digital Compositors:
- Richard Dunn
- Jonathan D. Egstad
- Craig 'Xray' Halperin
- Simon Haslett
- Mark M. Larranaga
- Darren M. Poe
- Donovan A. Scott
- Ron Shock
- Digital Matte Supervisor:
- Martha 'Snow' Mack
- Digital Matte Artists:
- Shannan Burkley
- Paolo J. De Guzman
- Digital Tree Animation:
- Matthew Butler
- David William Prescott
- Darin K. Grant
- Digital Bird Animation:
- Bernd Angerer
- Daniel W. Loeb
- Christopher Roda
- Vernon R. Wilbert Jr
- Rotoscope Supervisor:
- Howard Muzika
- Rotoscope Artists:
- Christopher Bayz
- Michael J. Frick
- Robert A.D. Frick
- Lilian Jacobs
- Bryon D. Werner
- Tonia Young
- Visual Effects Co-ordinator:
- Lauren Littleton
- Digital Effects Co-ordinators:
- Laura E. McDermott
- Lisa K. Spence
- Visual Effects Editor:
- Debra Wolff
- Offline Visual Effects Editor:
- Robert Doolittle
- Software Manager:
- Daryll Strauss
- Scan Record Manager:
- Joseph R. Goldstone
- Scan Record Supervisor:
- Christopher Holsey
- Colour Grading Supervisor:
- Jeffrey Kalmus
- Systems Manager:
- Jason Lee
- Resource Co-ordinators:
- Franco Pietrantonio
- Gaby Valensi
- Film Imaging Supervisor:
- Michael D. Kanfer
- Visual FX Compositing Consultant:
- Price Pethel
- Executive in Charge of Visual Effects Production:
- Nancy Bernstein
- Senior Vice President of Effects Production:
- Ed Ulbrich
- Digital Visual Effects
- CIS Hollywood
- Executive Producer:
- C. Marie Davis
- Visual Effects Producer:
- Patti Kuwaye Mauck
- Visual Effects Supervisor:
- Dr Ken Jones
- Visual Effects Editor:
- Dawn Llewellyn
- Digital Artists:
- Gregory Oehler
- Suzanne Mitus-Uribe
- Digital Rotoscoping/Paint:
- Larry Gaynor
- Gary Goldstein
- Additional Matte Paintings
- Michael Lloyd
- Time Lapse Dawn Photography
- Simon Carroll
- Wave Element Photography
- Yuri Farrant
- Additional Digital Scanning/Laser Film Recording
- EFilm
- Travelling Matte Backing
- Composite Components
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- Roy Arbogast
- Supervisor:
- James Reedy
- Co-ordinator, Additional Photography:
- Tom Sindicich
- Foreman, Additional Photography:
- I.J. Van Perre Jr
- Foremen:
- Ron Bolanowski
- William D. Lee
- Richard S. Wood
- Liaison:
- Kate Steinberg
- Model Maker
- B.J. Fredrickson
- Models
- Cinema Production Services Inc
- Models Supervisor:
- Michael Joyce
- Lead Modelmakers:
- Ken Swenson
- Mark Ross-Sullivan
- Jeryd Pojawa
- John Joyce
- Models Crew:
- Craig Abele
- Mark Dillon
- Todd Fellows
- Ayse Francis
- Chris Hopkins
- Ginger Joyce
- Mark Joyce
- Christopher McCormick
- Karl Mihail
- Tim Niver
- Andre Nogueira
- Olivia Ramirez
- Gary Rhodaback
- Dennis Schultz
- Chris Simmons
- Chuck Young
- Models Cinematography
- Cinema Production Services Inc
- Director of Photography:
- Garry Waller
- Camera Operators:
- Brett Harding
- Derek Prusak
- Production Co-ordinator:
- Sean Stanek
- Motion Control CrewProgrammers:
- Portia DiGiovanni
- Laura Kelly
- Supervising Art Directors
- Jim Dultz
- Tomás Voth
- Art Director/Art Director - Additional Photography
- Christian 'Pipo' Wintter
- Set Designers
- Erin Kemp
- Dawn Swiderski
- Aric Lasher
- Jake Strelow
- Alicia Maccarone
- Set Decorator
- Cindy Carr
- Illustrators
- Pre-visualization Unit:
- Mauro Borrelli
- Tom Cranham
- Michael Jackson
- Tani Kunitake
- Sherman G. Labby
- Simon Murton
- Cristian Scheurer
- CG Illustrator
- Pre-visualization Unit:
- B. Ian Hayden
- CGI Animator
- Pre-visualization Unit:
- Scott Harper
- Annie's Paintings
- Stephen Hannock
- Head Scenic Artist
- Dale Haugo
- Conceptual Artists
- Pre-visualization Unit:
- Andrew Burward-Hoy
- Mike Worrall
- Pre-visualization Artist
- Pre-visualization Unit:
- John Jakubowski
- Costume Designer
- Yvonne Blake
- Costume Supervisor
- Carol Sadler
- Key Make-up Artist
- Cindy Jane Williams
- Special Make-up Designed/Created by
- Masters FX, Inc
- Prosthetic Make-up Effects
- Todd Masters
- Key Hair Stylists
- Frida S. Aradóttir
- Additional Photography:
- Terrell L. Baliel
- Titles/Opticals
- Pacific Title/Mirage
- Orchestra
- London Metropolitan Orchestra
- Oboe Solo
- Michael Kamen
- Orchestrations
- Michael Kamen
- Robert Elhai
- Music Supervisor
- Dawn Solér
- Music Production
- James Brett
- Michael Price
- Music Editors
- Daryl B. Kell
- Brent Brooks
- Bill Abbott
- Music Recordist/Mixer
- Steve Mclaughlin
- Russian Folk Music Research
- Inna Gotman
- Music Research
- Michael Heath
- Soundtrack
- "Chris & Annie's theme" is based on variations of "Beside You" by Martin Fulterman, Michael Kamen; "Hymn II. from Three Sacred Hymns" by Alfred Schnittke, performed by The Slavyanka Chorus and The San Francisco Girls Chorus, conducted by Dr Sharon J. Paul
- Choreography
- Additional Photography:
- JoAnn Fregalette Jansen
- Lisa Giobbi
- Production Sound Mixer
- Nelson Stoll
- Recordists
- Eric Flickinger
- Drew Webster
- Re-recording Mixers
- Patrick Cyccone Jr
- Michael Keller
- Supervising Sound Editors
- David Kneupper
- Peter Michael Sullivan
- Sound Editors
- Dino DiMuro
- Randy Kelly
- Jon Title
- Scott Martin Gershin
- Hector Gika
- Bob Beher
- Paul Carden
- Patrick Sellers
- Dialogue Editors
- Dan Rich
- Neal Anderson
- Laura Harris
- ADR
- Supervisor:
- Jessica Gallavan
- Chris Jargo
- Mixers:
- Dean Drabin
- David Novack
- Daryn Roven
- Editors:
- Laura Graham
- Constance A. Kazmer
- Mary Smith
- Simon Coke
Foley- Artists:
- James M. Moriana
- Sarah Jacobs
- Katherine Harper
- Recordist:
- Julie C. Lucas
- Mixers:
- David Alstadter
- Randall K. Singer
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Charles Croughwell
- Animal Handlers
- DeAnn Zarkowski
- Shelley Davis
- Animals Provided by
- Gentle Jungle
- Helicopter Co-ordinator
- Angel Falls Unit:
- Gabriel Toth
- Helicopter Pilots
- Angel Falls Unit:
- Capt Oswaldo Loretu
- Niagara Falls Unit:
- David Tommasini
- Aerial Co-ordinator
- Niagara Falls Unit:
- Lee Cole
- Cast
- Robin Williams
- Chris Nielsen
- Cuba Gooding Jr
- Albert
- Annabella Sciorra
- Annie Nielsen
- Max von Sydow
- The Tracker
- Jessica Brooks Grant
- Marie Nielsen
Josh Paddock- Ian Nielsen
- Rosalind Chao
- Leona
- Lucinda Jenney
- Mrs jacobs
- Maggie McCarthy
- Stacey Jacobs
- Wilma Bonet
- Angie
- Matt Salinger
- Reverend Hanley
- Carin Sprague
- Best Friend Cindy
- June Lomena
- woman in car accident
- Paul P. Card IV
- paramedic
- Werner Herzog
- face
- Clara Thomas
- little girl at lake
- Benjamin Brock
- little boy at lake
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
- 10,197 feet
- 113 minutes 18 seconds
- Dolby digital/Digital dts sound/SDDS
- Colour by
- Monaco Labs
- Anamorphic [Panavision]