Nothing about “Dream Team” is very serious, and it would be a waste of time to force meaning onto it. But that’s not a mistake; it’s the whole idea. Directed by the always adventurous team of Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn (“Two Plains and a Fancy,” “L for Leisure”), the film is shot and structured to pay homage to late-night cable thrillers from the 1990s, complete with a cheekily erotic edge.
The story, such as it is, is set around 1997 and follows two Interpol agents named No St. Aubergine (Esther Garrel) and Chase National (Alex Zhang Hungtai) as they investigate a strange conspiracy that might involve murderous coral. Their journey takes them to Mexico, where they encounter a bevy of weirdos as well as a seductive scientist named Veronica Beef (Minh T Mia) with that most ’90s of jobs: marine biologist. Back in the office in British Columbia, two young women (Fariha Roisin and Isabelle Barbier) are supposed to be researching the case, but mostly seem interested in working out.
It’s pretty silly, but that’s clearly a feature, not a bug. “Dream Team” is broken into episodes with titles like “Coral Me Bad” and “Fax on the Beach” (there is, in fact, a fax machine on the beach) and some naughtier wordplay. The movie was shot on 16-millimeter film, the grainy, smudgy look of which may make you feel like you’ve either dozed off or ingested hallucinogens.
For long stretches, we’re just observing underwater corals, watching people dance in a club, or lingering in a desert littered with discarded aerobics equipment. The storytelling only enhances the disjointed sensation: The central plot waxes and wanes, and by the end seems to have trailed off into the sunset.
That’s not to say that this is a bad movie, though whether you think it’s a good one will depend a bit on your tolerance for irony and the absurd. It is undoubtedly diverting. I dare you not to chuckle when one character begins researching a case by declaring, “I’ll start searching Lexis,” and the reply is, “got it — I’m on Nexis.” For viewers of a certain age, the nostalgia is enjoyable as well: There are dial-up modems and very old computer graphics and one of those abdominal crunch rocker devices I remember my father keeping in the basement.
These amusements don’t keep “Dream Team” from getting old after a while; the bit can feel played out. Yet what I found most interesting was not the film itself but the fact of its existence. To my eye, there’s been a recent uptick in movies that self-consciously emulate the style and form of a previous film era — “The Substance,” “A Different Man,” “The Apprentice” and “Saturday Night,” just to name releases from this fall. (The excellent drama “I Saw the TV Glow” is another; that film’s director, Jane Schoenbrun, is an executive producer of “Dream Team.”)
It’s indicative of two factors dovetailing. Inventive filmmakers have easier access to technologies that evoke other styles, whether it’s the film grain or the way the lens zooms in on a face.
But these films are also the products of a generation of artists brought up in a world where it’s easy to see movies from all kinds of eras at once. First it was VHS and DVD rental stores, then DVD-by-mail, and now streaming: If you want to know what 1972 or 1997 looked like onscreen, you can do that through any number of platforms, without having to wait for your movie theater to show an old print.
Often (as in “The Substance,” especially) the look of the film deliberately underscores the content. But sometimes it’s just for fun, and that’s the case with “Dream Team.” Does that make it a waste of time? I think not.
In an era when it feels like most mainstream entertainment has been focus grouped and algorithmically optimized to within an inch of any signs of life, it’s refreshing to watch lumpier, more peculiar movies. They feel designed to confuse streaming recommendations and make us squirm a little, and even when I don’t really like them, I love them. Vitality only flourishes in cinema when artists can experiment — and when they can dare to make a movie not everyone will like.
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