September’s movie was David’s #12 Dreams… specifically Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams.
This seems to be something very different from anything I’ve ever seen from Kurosawa. It’s basically a compilation of 8 short films that he has labeled his dreams. I guess the closest of his films would be Rashomon, which has basically three shorts, but at least they are all the same plot just told from different perspectives. The shorts in Dreams are not connected at all. And you can tell this is one of his later films because of all the bright vibrant colors, probably his most vibrant movie since Ran.
I guess the best way to review this film is to talk about each segment, so here we go:
- Sunshine Through the Rain
A boy, presumably Kurosawa, interrupts a fox wedding during a rainstorm in the daylight. The boy’s mother says the foxes wants the boy dead and suggests he goes apologizes or commit seppuku for his transgressions. This is pretty out there. I think there’s a cultural barrier for a lot of these shorts that’s hard to overcome. More so than in any of his other more conventional narratives.
- The Peach Orchard
A boy follows a mysterious girl to a garden where the trees turn into living dolls. They give us a lecture on environmentalism and warn us there will be no more doll festivals if the peach orchards get chopped down. The only reason I know what a doll festival is, is because of an episode of Pokemon. Environmentalism is a theme throughout these shorts. - The Blizzard
A group of mountaineers get lost in a blizzard. They all die one by one as each is visited by a Yuki-onna, a strange old ghost woman which is again is another cultural entity that I wasn’t familiar with. It was nice seeing an attempt at horror from Kurosawa. winnable - The Tunnel
A discharged soldier is walking back home after WW2, when suddenly he is confronted by the dead men from his platoon. Now as far as I know, Kurosawa never served in his countries military. But he still did grow up during that WW2 era in Japan. This one ends up with soldier taking the blame for their deaths as he sent them to fight an un-winnable war.
- Crows
Here an art student gets lost in Van Gogh’s paintings, literally. He wanders from painting from painting as Kurosawa uses a lot of blue screen technology, which is kinda cool. And we get to see Marty Scorsese play Van Gogh, which is a good time. - Mount Fuji in Red
A nuclear power plant in Fuji is getting ready to blow. The people nearby have two choices, die from the radiation or drown themselves in the Ocean, all but four decided to stay out of the water and watch the world’s final moments. Kurosawa really hitting the themes of the environment hard. - The Weeping Demon
Now we are in a post apocalyptic world filled with giant vegetation and yokai like creatures. Kurosawa wonders this world and gets a brief history lesson from one of these monsters, one that seemingly is on the bottom of the food chain. - Village of the Watermills
Kurosawa visits a primitive town that only runs on the power of windmill. The town has forsaken all modern technology. There’s a funeral procession for a village elder, the town celebrates her life. This is one of the more cheerful dreams.
I would say that Kurosawa has more nightmares than dreams. It’s almost as if he’s constantly worried about the state of the world, haunted by the past, frightened of the future, terrified of how humanity will fuck up the world by cutting down forests, using unsafe means of power, and not respecting nature. I think most of these dreams are good, though they are a bit too short to truly appreciate. They are all beautifully shot, and it’s nice to see the old master embrace blue screen technology. But at the end I was left wanting more and wishing that he had been a bit more subtle in his themes. But I did enjoy the darker tone of a lot of these. It’s nice to see that even at the end of his career, Kurosawa was still trying to explore new areas of his art.
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