Dreamers Soundtrack CD

Bernardo Bertolucci's celebration of sexual and creative awakening, Dreamers -- which is set in 1968 Paris against the backdrop of that year's student riots -- features an appropriately sensual and freewheeling soundtrack that spans everything from classic American rock to classic French pop to excerpts of the scores from classic French films. The album tips its hat to Hendrix twice, opening with his molten "Third Stone From the Sun," and then following that with a well-intentioned but lacking cover of "Hey Joe" by the film's stars. The mannered French pop of Charles Trenet's "La Mer," Michel Polnareff's "Love Me Please Love Me," and Françoise Hardy's "Tous les Garcons et les Filles" make Steve Miller Band's "Songs for Our Ancestors," the Doors' "The Spy," and an edit of the Grateful Dead's "Dark Star" sound that much more decadently indulgent. Meanwhile, the pieces of music from such films as Les Quatres Cents Coups, A Bout de Souffle, and Pierre Le Fou tie the album together with an elegance and passion that culminates with the soundtrack's final song, Edith Piaf's "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien." While its juxtapositions of French tradition and counterculture are jarring at times, Dreamers still does a worthy job of capturing the film's personal and political revolutions through music. ~ Heather Phares

Jimi Hendrix/Grateful Death/ Doors/Edith Piaf/Steve Miller

Arranger: Nick Laird-Clowes.

Personnel: Ben Coleman (electric violin).

Audio Mixer: Steve MacLoughlin.

Uncut (p.96) - 4 stars out of 5 - "This is the perfect album for your inner schizo Francophile hippie."