When I first saw 'Being John Malkovich', I didn't really know much about - it was a while since I'd been to the cinema because of work and I went to see it on the strength of John Cusack. As I sat in that cinema full of bored teenagers, watching the story unfold, I was amazed at how similar an experience it actually was to the first film I really fell in love with, 'Electric Dreams'.
I've never been completely sure what I especially liked about the film. Virginia Madsen certainly has a big sister / first crush quality, with her woolly jumpers and body wrapped around a cello. Lenny Van Dollen is certainly as good an actor as anyone whose worked in this kind of film and offers work of quite subtle range. And the computer is heartbreaking. And the music is lovely. This is perhaps a film which is uncriticisable because it captures a time in life so beautifully.
Made in 1984, 'Dreams' has a plot similar in scope to 'Malkovich'. Miles subordinating of the newly sentient computer parallel's Craig Schwartz control of the film actor. As the computer operator uses Edger to woo the love of both their lives, so the puppeteer controls Malkovich to get into the panties of his 'business partner'.
There is no doubt the film has dated, although in its own way it uses visual techniques which at the time must have seemed as extreme as the flourishes of the latter film. Its use of pop video, in the sequences of high emotion, especially in the scene of where Miles is chased around the house, are at least echoed in the chase sequence at the heart of 'Malkovich'.
With all this in mind, its perhaps a time to re-assess this film as more than the fluff its previously been thought of as being.
