Film of Dreams

If my dreams of late were to be put on film, one or two will quite easily run away with the Palme d'Or. (OK, I can settle for an Urian.) My nightmares will ensure me huge box-office returns; and give Jason a run to hell. And as for my erotic dreams, they will definitely gather no dust on video rental shelves.

I complained to my wife that my dreams are so vivid, they rob me of my sleep. I am not making this up. It's extremely exhausting to be in dreams where you are the star, the director and the audience, all at one time.

My dreams are not the typical one and a half hour films. My waking hour often coincides with the end of the film or a pivotal part of an unfinished film. Usually, that happens when someone is drowning, gets shot, gets stabbed or hits the ground. Then the dream ends, whether in sleep or in real life. And in films, the real ones of course, this is where the mother, the girlfriend, or the wife, hands the protagonist a glass of water.

To illustrate my point further, assuming that I start dreaming at around 1 AM and I'd wake up at around 6, the film would have a 5-hour running time, which no one would watch. If my dream would be chopped up into two, I would have a Tarantinoesque Vol.1 and 2, running at an average of 2 and a half hour. That would ensure me larger ticket sales, and hopefully, two hours more of a longer, sounder sleep. But then, things would be different if I were in theater with a double feature.

I've read somewhere that a dreamless sleep is unhealthy. Given a choice however, I'd rather have a dreamless sleep than a film festival. I can settle for shorts, animated features or documentaries, but not full-length films. Too much dreams is to me an affliction. This affliction has made me wonder why I've recently become an auteur, albeit in dreamland. I searched for answers and I've come up with three possibilities.

First, I've been watching too many films lately. Japan is treasure trove of film classics. Go to a rental shop and you'll likely find the old films you've long wanted to see but can't find in the Philippines. I saw Citizen Cane, the widely regarded best film ever made, here in Japan. Right now, I'm watching all Woody Allen films I can get hold of. His films would not find that much audience in the Philippines compared to Steven Segal.

Second, I'm reading too many film reviews. And I think I'm turning into a reviewer myself. I tend to look now not on a film's story but on how it was made. I focus more on the director and cinematographer's techniques, the production design, the editing and, of course, the acting. I feel that this tendency has somehow lessened my viewing pleasure but my consolation is that I can now better distinguish which is trash from which is not.

And the third and most plausible reason for my dreams is that, at one time, I may have wanted to be a film director. Now it is excruciatingly coming true, if only in my film of dreams.