In the absorbing Norwegian drama “Dreams,” Johanne (Ella Overbye), a high school student, falls deeply, madly in love with Johanna (Selome Emnetu), her French instructor. Their arguably taboo relationship doesn’t amount to a particularly racy film, unless you count sensuous close-ups of hands caressing wool sweaters. It does, however, ask spicy questions about art, power and consent.
“Dreams” is the final — and most rapturous — installment in Dag Johan Haugerud’s trilogy about the sexual and romantic mores of Oslo’s inhabitants. The first, “Love,” explores casual intimacy through the lens of an older straight woman and a younger gay man; the second, “Sex,” centers on two married men who feel stifled by the demands of heteronormativity. Like these films, “Dreams” is dialogue heavy, unfolding takes and worldviews with each extended conversation — usually between Johanne’s mother, Kristin (Ane Dahl Torp) and her bohemian grandmother, Karin (Anne Marit Jacobsen).
Both women are shocked, confused and captivated when they read the autofictional novel Johanne writes about her obsession with Johanna, and they work through these mixed feelings with heartening (and perhaps idealistic) levels of openness. The mothers add an intergenerational dimension to the film’s dilemmas: Grandma is something of a hippie and waxes poetic about her long list of sexual conquests, while Karin, the mother, declares that Johanne’s book is about her queer awakening — a label that Johanne finds limiting.
Haugerud’s characters can sometimes feel like neat vessels for the dissemination of ideas, yet their chats never feel like debates so much as two people trying and sometimes failing to figure out what their opinions truly are. Eventually, Kristin and Karin change their minds and decide it’s not such a bad idea for Johanne to publish her book.
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