Akira Kurosawa's Dreams
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Movie Reviews of Akira Kurosawa's Dreams
Movie Review: Dreaming in Shinto
Summary: 5 Stars
As usual with most things I love, this film is not for everyone. It is very much an "art film" and you have to like that sort of thing, but there are a couple of extra elements here that will separate the wheat from the chaff in whether someone else will "like" this... Specifically, it's in Japanese (w/English subtitles), most of it is in "real time", and it helps to understand Japanese concepts of Nature (where living things such as trees have "spirits" inside them.)
Aparently director Akira Kurosawa kept a dream journal, and this film presents 8 such dreams that particularly affected him. Mission accomplished: this film effectively sucked me in and put me in the place of Kurosawa during each vignette. I presume that each segment's ending was when he woke up.
There is some powerful stuff here, everything from nightmares to simply surreal episodes straight from his subconscious. Kurosawa bares his soul to the viewer, and the effect is truly moving. One of them (where he's stuck in the mother of all blizzards and the situation is demonstrably hopeless) absolutely crushed me. I freely admit that other segments reduced me to tears. If a film can communicate its effects that accurately and vividly to the viewer, it must be doing something right.
Of the 8 dreams, 2 are "so so" though that's me as a Westerner, and at least I can see why they would have more import to the director. The rest of the film more than makes up for them with their power.
In all likelihood, you have never seen anything like this film, so that alone makes it worth checking out. It is certainly worth watching once, and I'd recommend watching it twice so you don't have the anxiety of knowing whether everything works out all right (or not!) hanging over your head.
Movie Review: In Dreams I walk with you
Summary: 5 Stars
Akira Kurosawa's dreams are better than mine. If this is what he saw when he closed his eyes, then I can understand how from that mind sprang the Seven Samurai and the rest."Dreams" is maybe the most personal, most "Japanese" of Kurosawa's films, and along with that it is perhaps the most difficult one for Western audiences to appreciate. This is saying nothing against Western audiences, but many of the themes and myths on display may not be familiar, and the imagery and metaphors may be lost without the appropriate background. I definitely appreciated it more after living in Japan, and becoming familiar with the countries folklore and literary story-telling style. Hina Dolls, the Yuki Onna, the mountain villiges like islands of tradition amongst concrete modern Japan...
"Dreams" is beautiful, on a purely visual level. The cinematography is exquisite and the colors and light are displayed with the eye of a painter. It is appropriate that Van Gogh plays a role in one of the many dreams. Like Van Gogh, the stories in "Dreams" are expressionistic and vivid, yet with the subdued emotions that is the hallmark of Japanese literature. This is not the wild, raw statement of a younger Kurosawa.
Story-wise, the dreams play with the themes of death and loss, both human and of nature. The displacement of Japanese forests, the lack of safety standards at nuclear power plants, the loss of traditional Japan, the pointless loss of lives in war...melancholy themes at best. Yet at the end, hope is offered, in a small nook and cranny, like a flower blooming amongst concrete.
The DVD itself is a small disappointment, and I would rather have this belong to the Criterion Collection, but better to have it than not have it.
Movie Review: Now THIS is a movie!
Summary: 5 Stars
I remember seeing this movie some 6 years ago on PBS (a cultural/educational channel stationed here in New York).Not knowing what I was really watching,and also catching the film in the middle,I thought it was kind of wierd,yet very intriuging. I wanted to find out more about this movie and the director behind it.At the time I didn't have a computer,so research was kind of limited or took lots of work(you know what I mean). So I left the issue alone and concentrated on other things. Then one year later,"DREAMS" came on PBS again, and I happily watched it from start to finish. I have to say, this one of the best films I have seen ever.(and I have seen a lot!)
For one thing, This film "DREAMS" has opened my heart to foriegn-Japanese films and Japanese/Asian art as well.
In this film, Akira Kurosawa showed stunning visual perception and artistic quality you don't see very often in U.S. films. It was one of those art films that allows you take a mental and emotional journey into the mind and life of Kurosawa.
These are 8 beautifully,carefully shot and written stories that will move you in ways you never thought possible (only if you allow it to.)
If you are ONLY into high-budget commercial American films that are only there to dull your brain and steal your money, then you might want to stay away from this powerful gem. But, I sincerely recommend anyone to give it a chance.
You're getting deep stories with abundant amount of heart and soul. If you're an open-minded individual, you won't regret checking it out.
P.S.(If you love this movie then check out "RAISE THE RED LANTERN". It's not directed by Kurosawa, but it's also a powerful and thought-provoking Asian art film.)
Movie Review: In Your Dreams
Summary: 5 Stars
Although lacking the tight narrative movement of some of Kuraswa's best films, this loosely knit series of vignettes have moments of transporting beauty and depth.
Kurasawa's dreams will work their way into your own.
There are moments of horror, brutality, fear, nostalgia, wonder, sadness and joy. The great thing about Kurasawa is his ability to create a cinematic world in which these feelings are experienced by the sympathetic viewer. I think of these short stories as fairy tales for adults, and the film produces a childlike suspension of disbelief, an acceptance of wonder, and a willingness to be led to truth by beauty.
Fairy tales are saturated with mythical achetypes that carry important cultural meaning, and many have a universal appeal to deeply-held belief systems and values. The universal appeal of Kurasawa's work is directly connected to his understanding and use of mythical archetypes. Even when translating a story from a Russian author and plopping the characters down in Edo-period Japan, or setting a Shakespearean drama down in Japan's feudal countryside, it is Kurasawa's depiction of the universal in the particular that makes him both a great Japanese director and a great world director.
Now, I don't love every vignette in this film equally, but I am truly haunted by some of the images and scenes in a disturbing way that makes my life richer and more interesting. That makes me think that you might like this film, too.
Movie Review: Powerful dreams
Summary: 5 Stars
Eight dream-like stories that touches on everything from a childhood fantasy about a witnessing a fox wedding in the forest to post-apocalyptic nightmare of mutants and cannibals. Some very powerful stuff but a couple of episodes got too preachy when Mr. Kurosawa is exploring his nuclear-war anxieties. Some of my favorite pieces:
The Tunnel: A weary Japanese officer is walking home from a POW camp at the end of WWII. On the road, he comes upon a dark gaping tunnel, from which the ghosts of his dead soldiers emerge and haunt his conscience. It is hard to forget the image and the sound of a platoon of dead soldiers marching with relentless military precision, gradually emerging from the inky depth of the tunnel like bad memories welling up unbidden.
Sun Under the Rain: A boy ignores his mother's admonitions to stay in doors on a day when rain is falling on clear sunny sky. He ventures to the woods and witness an odd procession of fox spirits. It may sounds like fairy-tale yet the story takes a disquieting turn. The last images of a rainbow striding across a lush valley are beautiful almost beyond belief, but all that beauty is tempered by the uncertain fate of the little boy.
Crows: An art lover step into Van Gogh's paintings. Your eyes will think they died and went to heaven.