Synopsis
Tracing anxieties about technology back to the 1880s, DREAMS REWIRED combines clips from nearly 200 films and newsreels with an insightful commentary by Tilda Swinton on our eternal love/hate relationship with a hyper-mediated world.
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Cast
- Tilda SwintonNarrator (voice)
Recommendations
- 88
RogerEbert.com
The ethereal essay provides a bounty of poetry, in the form of a measured narration by international treasure Tilda Swinton, and an extensively labored assembly of 200 black-and-white film clips. - 80
The Guardian
First with the telephone, then early cinema, the magic of wireless radio and, finally, television, Dreams Rewired bombards the senses with a thorough and clever montage of found footage from the 1890s to the pre-war era. - 75
Boston Globe
Dreams Rewired is scattered by necessity and intent, and it throws off enough sparks to set your brain reeling. - 70
Village Voice
The filmmakers aren't arguing that mass-media tech leads to fascism, but they suggest, with some lightness, that our interconnectedness certainly facilitates it. But Dreams Rewired is no polemic, and it never mocks the past. - 60
The New York Times
Dreams Rewired is mostly content to entertain. Its explanations of how new inventions work are simplified to the point of superficiality. - 60
The Hollywood Reporter
Its feature-length assemblage of found footage, unified by an original soundtrack and eccentric narration by Tilda Swinton, will be too much of a good thing for some art-house patrons. But auds accustomed to the work of Bill Morrison and other archive-combing meditation artists should respond warmly. - 50
Slant Magazine
The documentary isn't advancing an argument so much as simply restating a European socialistic breed of fact. - 50
New York Post
Tilda Swinton narrates this oddball, meandering essay film.
