The entire portion of Monday’s class consisted of watching Akira Kurosawa’s film, Dreams. Essentially, the film is divided up in eight short segments, all of which are actual dreams of Kurosawa. The imagery used in the film pertains mostly to Japanese culture and I felt the film gave me mixed feelings. Overall, I thought the film was slow, entertaining, frightening, and disturbing.
The first segment, “Sunshine through the Rain” was a little slow for my taste. Artistically, it was calm, soothing, interesting, and the time and effort put into mastering the Japanese processional fox wedding was gorgeous. One would rarely see imagery such as this in an American film, but to be perfectly honest, at some points, it lost my attention. Watching a procession with repetitive choreography and mellow music for more than 8 minutes can be dreadful, but the Japanese culture was beautifully represented in this segment.
I felt “Peach Orchard” gave me the same kind of sensation I felt in “Sunshine through the Rain”—calm, soothing, boring, and interesting. Although I know one should primarily focus on the Japanese style of dance and the artistic choreography, I felt this portion of the segment to be boring and redundant. The storyline was just okay, but to a foreigner unaware of the Doll Festival in Japan, this segment may be a little confusing.
“The Blizzard” in my opinion was confusing. Even though I am aware that the woman in this segment is most likely a reference to a Japanese urban legend or myth, I wasn’t sure whether or not she was providing warmth for the climber to make it through his journey, or make him comfortably freeze to death in the blizzard. I am very certain that because I am not familiar with certain Japanese references, a great portion of the film was a mystery for me.
“The Tunnel” was very interesting, and yet not as disturbing as I hoped it to be. I am fascinated with paranormal activity and confrontations with the deceased, and I felt this portion of the film kept my attention. I was expecting something more frightening to happen, however, and the conversation the characters had was unexpected because I was hoping to hear them talk about something more grotesque and disturbing.
I actually enjoyed the nightmare segments of the film (i.e. “Mount Fuji in Red” and “The Weeping Demon”) because I tend to have dreams/nightmares that relate to these segments. “Mount Fuji in Red” gave me chills because it closely resembled what happened at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant after the drastic earthquake that hit Japan. Although Kurosawa’s representation was much more disastrous and extreme, the irony of having something like that happen is frightening. “The Weeping Demon” portrayed humans with horns living in agony and was very disturbing. I have to admit that these segments actually caught my attention and kept me entertained, but what I want to know now is how did Kurosawa dream these nightmares?
“Crows” and “Village of the Watermills” were probably the least interesting to me. “Crows” was dull and it was hard for me to get into the story. As much as I love Van Gough’s work, I didn’t find this segment to be interesting or entertaining at all. “Village of the Watermills” lacked a really good story, but the scenery and landscape in this segment was beautiful. The vibrant colors of the foliage and flowers really made me appreciate nature. The running water from the stream mixed with the village and landscape were spectacular and stunning, which was really the only reason why I appreciated this segment.
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