The dreams of the title are premonitions of the future, memories of the past, yearnings for an alternative present – and sometimes just the dreams that disturb the sleep of the film’s lead character, a logger named Robert Grainier, richly and expressively played with few words by Joel Edgerton. He is part of an exploited itinerant labour force in the early 20th century who cleared woodland wildernesses, built bridges and made way for the American railroad. He lives a quasi-hobo existence but is possessed of a passionate, unspoken inner life to which this fine movie gives expression. His emotional life is the tree that falls in the forest without making a sound.
Greg Kwedar has adapted the 2011 novella by Denis Johnson; the director is Clint Bentley, and they have created a lovely looking, deeply felt film, clearly absorbing the influences of Terrence Malick in some of the low camera positions, sunset-hour compositions, narrative voiceovers, and epiphanically revealed glories of the American landscape. There is also something of the early work of David Gordon Green, a film-maker once considered an heir to Malick.
