A SEXY TANGO THAT'S A TREAT.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

SURE, Bernardo Bertolucci's latest Parisian tango, ``The Dreamers,'' is as adolescent as they come. Fully deserving of its NC-17 rating, it's every American boy's fantasy of a French idyll, loaded with sex, nudity and intellectual pretension. And it takes place at the height of the anything-goes 1960s, no less.

But far better that kind of teenage pandering than the brainless vulgarity that dominates contemporary Hollywood's youth movies. There is also an implicit critique of the whole hothouse, well, dreamscape the film's trio of self-styled rebels inhabit, especially as the May '68 near-revolution gears up out on the streets.

``The Dreamers,'' based on screenwriter and film critic Gilbert Adair's novel ``The Holy Innocents,'' packs an extra-special treat for the cineastically minded. Taking as its cue one of the inciting preludes to the wider protests - the government's sacking of Henri Langlois, the beloved founder of the Cinematheque Francais - the movie is an ode to the kind of discerning, obsessive movie love that flourished at the time and has never been matched, before or since. For graying auteurists of a certain vintage - yes, I'm talking about me - nothing could be more seductive than this.

Even erudite cinematic intoxication is held up here for what it fundamentally is: a way to avoid or idealize engaging with the traumas of real, mature life.

Bertolucci has admittedly made much smarter forays into forbidden passions and politics (``Last Tango in Paris,'' of course, but also ``The Conformist,'' ``The Last Emperor'' and the underrated ``The Sheltering Sky''). Much dopier ones, too (like his last three: ``Besieged,'' ``Stealing Beauty'' and ``Little Buddha''). But something about ``The Dreamers'' feels just right for its setting and its protagonists' emotional ages.

Michael Pitt, who has impressed in supporting roles in ``Hedwig and the Angry Inch'' and ``Murder by Numbers,'' is the American Matthew, lonely but enjoying an extended school sabbatical at la cite's movie temples. When the Cinematheque is padlocked and demonstrations erupt outside (archive footage of Truffaut and company leading the charge is interspersed with shots of actor Jean-Pierre Leaud - a New Wave icon and ``Last Tango'' alum - from both then and now for this delectable re-creation), twins Theo and Isabelle (Louis Garrel and Eva Green) help Matthew dodge the cops.

Impressed by their new friend's movie knowledge, the French duo invite him to stay at their apartment. Their father, a windy poet, and English mother take off for an extended vacation, and before you can say enfants terribles, the too-intimate siblings are reeling their semi-reluctant friend from the puritanical side of the pond into their erotic, theoretical and movie trivia mind games. But are these Cocteau twins really as sophisticated as they keep trying to prove?

Needless to say, cruelties as well as passions are indulged while the apartment gets trashed. The Vietnam War and Jerry Lewis are debated, funny-looking magenta cigarettes burn long ashes and other weeds are more greedily smoked. The trio connects on a very deep level - not just physically, though there's a lot of that - but the most intriguing aspect of ``The Dreamers'' is its character mystery: Who is going to mature the most, and in which unpredictable ways?

Though its references to previous Bertolucci works are as copious as the impudent Mlle. Green's endowments, ``The Dreamers'' is not one of his better-looking films (rather than the director's usual lensman, the genius-level Vittorio Storaro, this one's cinematographer is ``Besieged's'' Fabio Cianchetti). That's not to say it lacks visual delight. The trio's giddy efforts to restage classic and eclectic film scenes are intercut with the shots from the real movies. A period-perfect soundtrack - Hendrix, Joplin, the Doors - enhances the formal pleasure for viewers of a certain age who remember when films were brave enough to try anything ... and you could believe, naively but fervently, that they would forevermore live up to your highest expectations.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

THE DREAMERS - Three and one half stars

(NC-17: sex, nudity, drug use, violence, language)

Starring: Michael Pitt, Eva Green, Louis Garrel.

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci.

Running time: 1 hr. 55 min.

Playing: Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Monica, Santa Monica.

In a nutshell: Kind of silly but nonetheless perceptive, this is a romanticized ode to everything a young American cinephile could hope to find in 1968 Paris - with a stinging wake-up call at the end.

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Photo:

Eva Green and Louis Garrel, right, star as French twins who immerse an American (Michael Pitt, center) in their world of eroticism and cruelty in 1968 Paris.