Film Forum

Tilda Swinton takes us on a dense, poetic journey through the history of connectivity – from radio, the phonograph, movies, television, and the telephone to today’s digital age. Drawing upon nearly 200 films made between the 1880s and 1930s, the film is an amazing collage of the scientific, dramatic, educational, erotic, experimental, and political. Rare archival materials share screen time with clips from Eisenstein’s BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, Dreyer’s VAMPYR and movies by Thomas Edison, Dziga Vertov, Hans Richter, Walter Rutmann, René Clair, Louis Feuillade, Rudy Burckhardt, and the great silent comic masters. Melding fantasy and fact, this treasure trove of brilliantly selected bits and pieces cumulatively tells the story of technology’s inexorable march into the 21st century.

AUSTRIA/GERMANY/UK • 2015 • 88 MINS. • IN ENGLISH • ICARUS FILMS

Reviews

“A LIVELY, VISUALLY ENTHRALLING attempt to gaze into the future by remembering the past.”
– Stephen Holden, The New York Times

“Brain-tickling. In brilliant archival footage, DREAMS REWIRED shows us becoming ourselves.”
– Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice

“A BOUNTY OF POETRY, in the form of a measured narration by international treasure Tilda Swinton. THRILLING.”
– Nick Allen, RogerEbert.com

“PLAYFUL & PROVOCATIVE. A time-warped essay film recontextualizing dusty old technologies as the Miracle of Now.”
– John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter

“A PHENOMENAL CINEMATIC ESSAY that playfully and enthusiastically reminds us that ‘every age thinks it’s the modern age’… A kaleidoscope montage of more than 200 films from a hundred years ago, (connecting) our current hyperconnected world -- and the anxiety that comes with it -- to the changing post-agrarian landscape of the years leading up to the First World War. DREAMS REWIRED isn’t so much a look back at the wacky technology of ye olden days as it is an attempt to contextualize our own world in the long and frantic history of progress that began with the electronic age.” 
– Devin Faraci, birthmoviesdeath.com