A wonderful mash-up of fantasy, horror, violence, and surrealism, Canadian director Bruce MacDonald’s Dreamland is a great mix of everything from a bizarre vampire wedding to human trafficking that is a visual delight.
Stephen McHattie plays two roles, a hitman named Johnny Deadeyes and a junkie trumpet player named The Maestro, and it doesn’t take long for the movies to stray into the strange and bizarre. Johnny’s boss Hercules (Henry Rollins) tasks him for a job, which entails cutting off one of the Maestro’s fingers. Hercules wants this done before the Maestro’s next gig, which happens to be a very bizarre wedding hosted by The Countess (Juliette Lewis) for her vampire sibling The Count (Tomas Lemarquis).
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MacDonald has created a film that embraces the weird and surreal, while still managing to keep everything grounded. When certain parts look like they are going to spin out of control, like the wedding scene, for example, he grabs hold of the reins and lets the actors weave their collective magic to make it all work. Written by Tony Burgess and Patrick Whistler, Dreamland moves in and out of the same old and absurd with relative ease, making most of what you are watching almost believable.
However, without McHattie the whole film might have fallen apart right from the get-go. He makes both characters he’s playing very believable, two men struggling with mortality and morality. Hercule’s new business of sex trafficking causes McHattie’s character Johnny Deadeyes to pause, wondering why he is doing what he’s doing and whether or not he can continue on this path. His calm demeanor with two characters in obvious turmoil is bookended well by Rollins and Lewis, who go over the top in various ways which makes Deadeyes and The Maestro seem like they are living in the eye of the hurricane.
This is not the easiest film to watch or digest, but everyone is at the top of their game here. The people involved obviously believe in this story because they mesh everything together so well. It looks really good and the score is haunting in parts, playing well with some of the violence and dreamlike scenes that are playing out for the viewer.
If you want to watch something a little different, surreal and dreamlike, yet still based in reality, Dreamland is something you should definitely watch. It’s very hard to predict what’s going to come next but the talent involved makes the journey from start to end one of the smoothest yet bumpiest rides you might ever take visually at the movies.
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