Am I the dreamer or the dream?

99 Cent Dreams is an experimental voyage into the surreal world of dreams.
This Docu-Fiction by Jason Rodi, shot on the seven continents of the world, is a beautiful amalgam of reality and fiction that pushes the boundaries of imagination. Produced in collaboration with Moment Factory, a Montreal based company, 99 Cent Dreams poses an inquisitive eye on the process of self-discovery through the exploration of our dreams.
The movie starts off strong with a niftily crafted introduction that highlights various themes explored throughout the piece such as time, flow, freedom, truth, fame, power, and roots, all of which bare relation to the phantasmagoric world of dreams.
As the picture unfolds, we found ourselves carried in a variety of distinctive, yet fascinating locations. From the tip of Mount Everest, to Hong Kong, all the way to India, then to Las Vegas, Rodi enrolls the viewer on a physical and psychological journey.
In each location is encountered a character who’s dreams are abstractedly decorticated and analyzed. Through out, the author also raises existential questions and analogies, traveling back and forth between reality and fiction.
He notably reveals his concerns around the notion of memory; more specifically the loss of individual and collective memory, and describes the usage of the camera lens as a tool for its salvation. Memory is the core of all dreams, thus its importance in the context of the movie.
Although sometimes random, the visual footage is rich, captivating, and for the most part, quite enigmatic (a quality in the case of this movie due to its enigmatic topic!).
Despite the beauty of the images, and the quality of the editing, it is the soundtrack that makes this piece so exquisite. A combination of random sound bites mixed with excerpts of speech and interviews, add a poetic twist that enhances its overall composition. The only itch is its length, a dragging eighty minutes that could have been cut down to sixty without loosing any of its positive traits.
99 Cent Dreams premiered at Parc de La Paix, next to la SAT, Sunday night, but is available online and on DVD. For more information, the Moment Factory websites (www.momentfactory.com) is worth the detour. Note that Moment Factory, a new media arts and entertainment studio founded by Jason Rodi himself, holds monthly projection of minute moments, a form of visual open mic.