Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers (2003) is a sensual, provocative film set against the backdrop of the 1968 Paris student riots—a time when politics, art, and identity were all in flux. At the center of this charged story is Isabelle, the enigmatic and ethereal female lead played by Eva Green in her feature film debut.
Isabelle is more than just a character—she is a living symbol of youthful decadence and rebellion. Along with her twin brother, Theo, she invites an American student named Matthew into their world of cinematic obsession, philosophical games, and gradually unraveling boundaries. Isabelle’s gender and beauty are at the very core of the film’s emotional and visual language.
Her physical presence is unforgettable. Isabelle exudes a classical, almost mythic allure—pale skin, dark hair, wide, expressive eyes. She walks through the film like a dream, equal parts innocence and danger. Her beauty is natural, unfiltered, and brazenly displayed. Bertolucci’s camera lingers on her not with judgment, but fascination—treating her body as both canvas and weapon in a world where boundaries are meant to be broken.
Isabelle’s femininity is layered. She is seductive, but never submissive; romantic, but not naive. There’s a calculated wildness to her—she plays with ideas, people, and herself with the recklessness of someone trying to feel everything at once. She is intelligent and emotionally intense, at times manipulative, at times tender, always elusive. Her gender is not portrayed as a fixed identity, but something fluid—shaped and reshaped through desire, cinema, and the crumbling ideologies around her.
Her relationships with Theo and Matthew are laced with eroticism, but also with confusion, emotional power play, and a desire to escape the confines of the ordinary world. Isabelle's body and presence are tools of expression—both defiance and vulnerability laid bare in a time when old structures (political, personal, sexual) are being challenged and broken down.
In The Dreamers, Isabelle is not simply a female lead—she is the embodiment of the film’s themes: beauty as rebellion, femininity as performance and truth, and intimacy as a form of political and personal awakening. Her character lingers long after the film ends, not just for what she does, but for what she dares to reveal.
