Nearly 20 years before the hyped-up Inception focused on the dream phenomenon, Emir Kusturica directed Johnny Depp in the surreal comic fantasy Arizona Dream. The film was produced by Claudie Ossard (Delicatessen/Amélie) and is typical of the kind of bizarre auteur films Depp used to appear in regularly before finding mainstream appeal as a Disney pirate.
The plot, such as it is, follows the dreamlike adventures of Axel Blackmar (Depp), a drifter who has taken on the shadowy job of tagging fish for the New York State Department of Fish and Game. His cousin, aspiring actor Paul Leger (Vincent Gallo), shows up announcing that his uncle Leo (Jerry Lewis) is planning to marry his Polish fiancée Millie (supermodel Paulina Porizkova), a girl more than half his age and that he wants Axel to be the best he can be. men; Axel reluctantly accompanies Paul back to his hometown of Arizona.
In his best role since playing a version of himself in Martin Scorsese’s King of Comedy, Jerry Lewis stands out as Axel’s Uncle Leo; an infectiously optimistic successful Cadillac salesman and living testimony to the “American Dream” paradoxically racked by survivor’s guilt for causing the accident that killed Axel’s parents, convinces him to stay after the wedding and try to sell cars.
Axel’s first potential clients are the eccentric widow Elaine Stalker (Faye Dunaway) and her suicidal stepdaughter Grace (Lili Taylor). His brazen arrival sparks the interest of both Axel and Cousin Paul, whose gift of speech secures an invitation to dinner at the Stalker’s house. That afternoon; Here, screenwriter David Watkins (Novocaine) delivers one of the most jaw-droppingly hilarious surprise scenes I’ve ever seen, and from then on I was totally hooked.
Axel embarks on an adventure with Elaine, and despite his wacky demeanor and poor understanding of reality, this May-September romance is compelling and genuinely moving to watch, especially his attempts to build the flying machine that she uses. has always dreamed of. The film’s theme of the pursuit of dreams versus reality is thoroughly explored; Uncle Leo dreams of stacking Cadillacs high enough to reach the moon, Grace dreams of being reincarnated as a turtle, and Paul aspires to be a great actor by replaying his favorite movie scenes, providing one of the rare scenes when he recreates the entire sequence. crop dusters from the Hitchcock classic North by Northwest for a local talent show.
Kusturica is clearly a master filmmaker and manages to maintain a dreamy feel throughout the film’s 142-minute runtime, it’s consistently funny but also has a haunting mystical quality that makes it engaging, and thankfully the release in French Blu-ray contains a DTS-HD. English 5.1 audio master track with forced subtitles for Raging Bull and The Godfather: Part II excerpts only, full 1080p picture quality is superb and 20 minutes that were cut from the theatrical release have been fully restored.
Arizona Dream is impeccably acted, and while the story and script have obviously had an element of improvisation, they are strong and stay true to their purpose of evoking the absurd and surreal quality of dreams, an element totally missing from Inception. by Christopher Nolan, the same could be said for the laughs of which there’s a plethora here as well, making it a must-see for fans of Depp’s earlier work.