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Dream Team is currently available for VOD rental or purchase.
DIRECTED BY: Whitney Horn, Lev Kalman
FEATURING: Alex Zhang Hungtai, Esther Garrel, Fariha Róisín, Isabelle Barbier, Minh T Mia
PLOT: Interpol agents Chase National and No St. Aubergine are on the case, investigating a murderous coral conspiracy.
COMMENTS: Whoever edited Dream Team deserves a prize. It’s slippery, smooth, relaxing—and looks gooood. Quick research tells me that none other than Horn and Kalman (also the directors, producers, cinematographers, &c.) were responsible. So there’s that. There’s also the rest of the Dream Team phenomenon, which I’m having difficulty putting into words. Please allow me a quick break for a word from our sponsors…
… which is in keeping with the structure (?) punctuating the film. Dream Team is broken into seven episodes, beginning with “Asses to Ashes” and wrapping up with an incongruous finale on the seventh episode, “Ashes to Asses.” The episodes’ cheeky titles (others include “Doppelgängbang” and “the Biggest Organ”) are the first of two clear statements of intent: Horn and Kalman are laughing with us at themselves—or presumably that’s the hope. The second clear statement of intent, illuminated only halfway through and then after the fact, is they’re both really interested in coral. Upwards of a fifth of the movie is dedicated to what is effectively a lecture on that super-organism, delivered by alt-kinky Doctor Beef, often in a mesh top or bathing suit. Horn and Kalman also explore other pet interests, including a paired gymnastics routine by Interpol tech girls K and Venice, not to forget a dive into the philosophical nature of philosophy and experimentation, and ending on an oenophilic note with a wine tasting for a “coed/co-op” basketball team.
As scribbled by Dr. Peniris, truth is required for beauty, so permit me to strive for that beauty within this humble review: I got rather distracted around two-thirds through, and do believe I lost the thread of the narrative. For this I apologize, but wish to place some of the blame on the movie itself. I survived, wholly focused, both Damnation and Nostalghia, so I feel this dereliction of duty wasn’t for lack of practice. But Horn and Kalman have made a very dreamy movie, nostalgic for a period that never quite existed in the manner presented. And this is fine: there’s nothing wrong with a post-post-modern reinvention via dream-cycle of a post-modern, mid-ironic pastel-fused quarter-century-ago remembrance—except for how many hyphens are required to describe it.
Dream Team is currently in limited release in New York and Los Angeles and will presumably show up on VOD in the near future. We’ll let you know.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: