Michel Franco’s Dreams: When Desire, Power, and Privilege Collide

Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco has built a career on discomfort. His films do not soothe, reassure, or explain themselves easily. Instead, they observe human behavior with a cold, unblinking eye, forcing audiences to sit with moral ambiguity long after the credits roll. With Dreams, Franco once again proves that he is less interested in answers than in exposure—exposing the quiet violence of power, privilege, and desire disguised as love.

Premiering on the international festival circuit, Dreams continues Franco’s exploration of unequal relationships, particularly those shaped by class, nationality, and emotional dependency. Like much of his work, the film is deceptively restrained. There are no sweeping monologues or melodramatic crescendos. The tension lives in silences, glances, and what goes unsaid.

A Relationship Built on Imbalance

At its core, Dreams examines a romantic relationship between two people from vastly different worlds. One partner enjoys wealth, security, and freedom of movement. The other exists in a far more precarious reality, shaped by borders, economic limitations, and dependency.

Franco does not frame this imbalance as accidental. It is structural, deeply rooted in systems that reward some while trapping others. What makes Dreams unsettling is how ordinary this inequality feels. The relationship does not begin with overt cruelty. In fact, it begins with affection, generosity, and shared intimacy.

But Franco asks a difficult question:

Can love truly exist when one person holds all the power?

As the film progresses, it becomes clear that good intentions do not erase structural dominance. Even kindness can become a tool of control when one person’s survival depends on another’s approval.

Desire Without Accountability

One of Franco’s sharpest critiques in Dreams is aimed at desire—particularly desire unburdened by consequences. The privileged partner in the film is free to pursue passion, self-discovery, and emotional fulfillment without risking stability or safety. The other is not.

This imbalance transforms intimacy into a negotiation. Love becomes conditional. Affection carries expectations. What might appear as romance on the surface slowly reveals itself as possession.

Franco never announces this shift. He allows it to unfold naturally, which makes it more disturbing. The audience is invited to recognize how easily exploitation can hide behind tenderness, especially when society has already tilted the scales.

The American Dream, Reframed

The title Dreams is deliberately ironic. Rather than celebrating ambition or hope, the film interrogates who is allowed to dream—and at what cost.

For one character, dreams are optional. They can be postponed, revised, or abandoned without consequence. For the other, dreams are tied to survival itself. Failure is not just disappointing; it is devastating.

Franco places this dynamic against the backdrop of migration and opportunity, subtly critiquing the myth of equal access to success. The film suggests that the “dream” sold to the world often depends on invisible labor, sacrifice, and submission from those least protected.

Minimalism as Moral Pressure

Stylistically, Dreams is unmistakably Franco. The camera is patient, often static. Scenes linger longer than expected, refusing to provide emotional relief. Music is used sparingly, if at all, allowing discomfort to fill the silence.

This minimalism is not aesthetic indulgence—it is moral pressure. By denying the audience cinematic cues about how to feel, Franco forces viewers to confront their own reactions. Sympathy shifts. Judgment wavers. Complicity becomes uncomfortable.

There are moments when the audience may even identify with the more powerful character, only to realize how easily charm and vulnerability can mask control. Franco does not shame the viewer for this. He exposes it.

Performances Rooted in Restraint

The performances in Dreams are deliberately understated. Emotion is rarely explosive. Instead, it simmers beneath the surface, communicated through posture, hesitation, and silence.

This restraint mirrors real-life power dynamics, where harm often occurs quietly. There are no villains twirling metaphorical mustaches. There are people making choices that benefit themselves, rationalizing those choices as love, opportunity, or inevitability.

By avoiding melodrama, Franco ensures the film feels uncomfortably real.

No Easy Villains, No Clean Innocence

One of the most challenging aspects of Dreams is its refusal to assign simple moral roles. While the imbalance is clear, Franco does not present the privileged character as purely malicious, nor the vulnerable character as entirely passive.

This complexity is intentional. It reflects how power operates in the real world—not always through overt abuse, but through systems that reward some for taking more while expecting others to accept less.

The discomfort comes from recognition. These dynamics are not rare or extreme. They are common, normalized, and often invisible to those who benefit from them.

Why Dreams Resonates Now

In a global moment defined by conversations about inequality, migration, consent, and exploitation, Dreams feels particularly urgent. It does not offer solutions or redemption arcs. Instead, it asks viewers to examine how personal relationships are shaped by political and economic realities.

The film challenges the idea that intimacy exists in a vacuum. Love, Franco suggests, is never separate from power.

A Film That Refuses Comfort

Dreams is not designed to entertain in a conventional sense. It is designed to unsettle, provoke, and linger. Like much of Michel Franco’s work, it resists emotional closure, leaving the audience with unresolved tension rather than catharsis.

That lingering discomfort is the point.

By stripping romance of its fantasy and examining it under the harsh light of inequality, Dreams becomes less about love itself and more about the conditions that shape it.

And once those conditions are seen clearly, they are impossible to ignore.