Politics, sexuality and rebellion intertwine in Paris shaping three seemingly disengaged young lives during the riots of 1968 in Bernardo Bertolucci’s film “The Dreamers.”

The film is a brilliant adaptation of Gilbert Adair’s 1988 memoir, “Holy Innocents,” which portrays aspects of the lost generation of the ’60s.

Matthew, played by Michael Pitt, is a young American from San Diego who is studying abroad in Paris. For the most part he acts as the audience’s eyes and ears. He is nave and unfamiliar with French culture and a foreign society. He spends the majority of his time watching films in the cinemateque which links him to Isabelle and Theo.

Isabelle, played by Eva Green, and Theo, played by Louis Garrel, are the twin children of a famed French poet. They share a secretive and relatively abnormal relationship. On the surface it appears to be incestuous, but all in all, has a deeper meaning.

The majority of the film is set in the spacious Parisian apartment which belongs to the twins’ parents who are away on holiday. The pair invite Matthew to stay with them until the parents arrive home.

Matthew, Theo and Isabelle slowly run out of food and money but are too engulfed in each others’ company to care. Each day the trio sits in the apartment and finds new ways to entertain themselves instead of going to school. The twins share their desires with Matthew to provoke each other into doing extreme things which raises the stakes through a couple dares relating to exhibitionism. The movie progresses forward from there.

In the early scenes, the trio’s relationship is playful and seemingly normal. All of a sudden, though, it spirals into a twisted, erotic sexual obsession. Before long, reality demolishes the love triangle, and hearts are broken with conflicting emotions.

The sexual content tastefully reflects the time and place but is correspondingly explicit and graphic. It is easy to get engrossed in the sexuality of the film, luckily though, there are themes greater than the trio’s sexual fascination.

The film itself is photographed beautifully and well crafted. Some of its best visual aspects are inserted clips from various French classics that relate to what is happening with the protagonists. The movie is a referential paradise for film nuts.

Familiar images are accompanied with well chosen songs by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, the Doors and Janis Joplin.

The movie is appropriately rated NC-17, as a result of sexual themes and full frontal nudity. “The Dreamers” moves at a fairly slow pace, and its symbolism is subtle, but the movie was enjoyable overall.