With Looper only a couple weeks from release, and it’s anticipation reaching fever pitch, now seems as good a time as any other to take a look back on some of director Rian Johnson’s earlier work. Thus we are presented with The Psychology of Dream Analysis, in which a girl who works at a paper-stand begins to realize that she has never once been the subject of her own dreams. She, in fact, has always had the dreams of someone else, a man whom she discovers is real and begins to pursue him in order to discern the nature of their connection.
It’s a neat concept and the film goes on to have some keen, though not particularly revelatory observations about the nature of relationships. There’s nothing like looking back on a director’s work just as they hit their stride, and Johnson’s originality is a breath of fresh air in contemporary Hollywood, what with it’s reboots and remakes. If asked, I’ll always side with the guy willing to take chances, and thank goodness Johnson is just such a director. I look forward to seeing what he’ll be bringing us next.
