Akira Kurosawa's Dreams

*** out of ****

Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams is an uneven hodgepodge of half-ideas and autobiographical sermons from one of the greatest directors of all time, made in the twilight of his life when his eyesight was nearly gone and his health was quickly fading.
It is a collection of eight short films based on dreams that Kurosawa had throughout his life, beginning with childhood and continuing on into adulthood. As one would expect with such a premise, the dreams offer some pretty remarkable, though decidedly bleak, images and thoughts on human nature. Considering that it was made by a director who specializes in human nature, it’s probably best that we listen to what he has to say.

It is difficult to review an anthology film as a whole; I prefer to review each segment as a short film and only then consider the smaller pieces together. It is possible to view Dreams as one piece if we consider it the ever-changing revelations of the director, but the pieces contrast so much in tone and nature that it probably best to discuss the segments individually. That said, there are a few things that we can determine after viewing the entire film: Kurosawa is telling a story here in chronological order, in which one character, called “I,” seemingly meant to represent Kurosawa himself, grows from child to man and experiences adventures of increasingly apocalyptic proportions. By the time the film reaches its final segment, it has come full circle, at least on a superficial level.

1. Sunshine Through the Rain (**). A disappointing start. “I,” as a small boy, witnesses the marriage of fox in the woods on an enchanted day of both sunshine and heavy rain. It is forbidden for a human to witness such a ceremony, and “I” must face the consequences—which we never see. There are some interesting images here, but the pace is a little too slow, and Kurosawa meanders in the narrative. The fox’s wedding is supposed to be haunting, but it is shot with such a heavy-hand that it is instead silly and boring. The final image of the boy walking in a huge orchard towards a rainbow is beautiful, but it’s jolting in the way it grinds to a halt. What happens to the little boy for his curiosity? We never know, and the buildup therefore has no real payoff. One could argue, of course, that Kurosawa only filmed what he remembered, but the sequence is nevertheless too abrupt to leave any real impact.

2. The Peach Orchard (***). Kurosawa favors better here, as “I,” a little older, encounters the colorful spirits of a chopped-down peach tree orchard who are angry at the destruction of their trees. When they see that the boy is also devastated at human’s destruction of nature, the spirits perform a dance for him in which they re-enact the peach orchard’s life through different seasons, and it really is quite a beautiful, satisfying display. One wonders why anyone would want to chop such beauty down, which is exactly Kurosawa’s point.

3. The Blizzard (****). Leonard Maltin has called this segment “vintage K,” and I wholeheartedly agree. During a long hike up a snowy mountain, “I” and some others face a terrible blizzard and ultimately encounter a beautiful snow fairy who aids them in finding their camp. More interesting than the fairy, however, are the moments leading up to the encounter: Kurosawa shoots the scene with a still and dream-like camera, quietly focusing on the men as they strain up the mountain, covered up to their torso in what appears to be snow. I say “appears” because of the apocalyptic nature of later segments—considering Kurosawa’s ultimate theme that man will inevitably destroy the earth in his stupidity, could this mountain be covered not with snow, but with the ashes of nuclear destruction? Whatever the case, the director creates some of his best visuals here—the men, caked in flurries and sweat, inch up the mountain, and every step makes them groan in increasing agony. Our bones literally ache for them as they battle against nature, and when the snow fairy comes to grant them rest, "I” only tries to defy her further by struggling to escape her grasp. The Blizzard finds the aging Kurosawa at his best work since 1985’s masterpiece Ran.

4. The Tunnel (***1/2). Another strong segment that plays like Kurosawa’s answer to Able Gance’s J’Accuse. Returning home for war, “I” travels through a dark tunnel, only to be followed by the ghosts of a dead platoon that he once lead into battle. “I” can only look at the group in sorrow, and he eventually concludes what Gance’s idealist film is never willing to: He is sorry that they were killed, but humanity’s stupidity is so great that even the dead returning will not prove the evils of war to the world. The dead army itself is quite an image: Kurosawa shoots them from a distance, with their eyes blacked out and their faces a grotesque blue. This turns out to be a pretty powerful anti-war statement, made even more powerful when “I” sends the dead soldiers away, knowing full well that their return to the land of the living will “prove nothing.” Kurosawa seems perfectly aware that an anti-war statement never once stopped a war, and he successfully shakes his head sadly at this fact.

5. Crows (**1/2). A weaker segment, in which “I,” now a painter, leaps into the images of Vincent Van Gogh and encounters the mad painter (played with humor and affection by Martin Scorsese) living within his work. There are some interesting themes here that are a direct challenge to the audience members: To find the soul and obsessions artist, one needs only to look within the art. This is particularly true of Van Gogh, Scorsese, and Kurosawa, and that the segment features such remarkable artists adds a touch of humor in the film as it winks at the audience. Still, the segment drags on for too longer, and even after the point has already been made, it lingers. The final portion of the segment is “I” running through the fields and houses of Van Gogh’s paintings, and if this is interesting visually, there’s really not narrative or thematic point to it.

6. Mount Fuji in Red (***). “I” witnesses the eruption of Mount Fuji and its ensuing devastation, which includes the lava’s destruction of several large nuclear reactors, whose destruction poisons the air with deadly radiation. Clearly a response to the nuclear holocaust that Japan faced in World War II and the ensuing creation of nuclear weapons during the Cold War, Kurosawa creates an interesting, if obvious, parable of man being his own worst enemy, even in the face of natural disasters. A scientist sadly lists the different colors of various radiations and describes their differing, terrible effects on the human body, and he notes, “Humans are so stupid. Radiation is invisible, so they have colored it so that people will know the different ways that it will kill them.” The segment ends on a very bleak note, as it should.

7. The Weeping Demon (***1/2). A very stirring piece, and probably a direct sequel to the previous segment. In the midst of nuclear devastation, “I” encounters a pitiful demon that was once a human before radiation mutated him. The segment ends on a visually stunning note: The demon takes “I” to a peak, where they look down and see a vast number of other demons, who all weep in pain as radiation slowly kills them. The demon turns to “I” and says, “Do you want to be a demon too?” The creature is more or less addressing the audience, warning them of the impending danger that our selfishness and ambition will cause. This segment is probably the most clear-cut parable of all of the different dreams, where instead of merely preaching to us, Kurosawa reveals the damaging effects of war and greed through the metaphor of the weeping demon and his kind.

8. Village of the Water Mills (**). Unfocused, uninvolving, and overly preachy, Village of the Water Mills ends Dreams on a very unsatisfactory note. In his journeys, “I” stumbles upon a village in which time has reversed. Energy is created out of water mills, and there is no need for any modern devices, such as electricity or technology. “I” encounters an old man who argues that technology will only destroy the world, because a stupid mankind does not know how to wield it. The segment consists of little else but this conversation, and it is a point so obvious after the previous segments that I wonder why Kurosawa felt a need to verbalize it so literally. The segment ends as an interesting contrast to the first segment: Instead of watching a stern wedding, “I” sees a happy, joyful funeral. This moment sort of brings the film full circle, but it brings to mind the staleness of the first segment more than it encompasses the themes of the entire film.

Kurosawa seems to be saying that humanity is bleak, and only with death will we find peace and release. In the meantime, life is best experienced in its simplicity, when we reject man’s ambition and return to a passive, more peaceful way of life. Each segment represents a different type of human obsession (curiosity, war, restlessness, remorse), all of which end with a similar revelation that man’s ambition and stupidity is slowly but surely destroying the world. This is a point that he had made so clear in his earlier films (Throne of Blood, Ikiru, Rashomon) that by Dreams, he is probably preaching old sermons to the choir.

That the film never quite comes together as a whole is probably inevitable: To remember and recapture images from one’s unconscious is a lofty goal. Cinema deals with concrete images that are more grounded than the ones that can be created out of the angles and imaginations of the mind’s eye. A film such as this will probably make us long to dream ourselves more than it will inspire us to learn something from Kurosawa’s own night fantasies. Nevertheless, Kurosawa’s ambition remains thought-provoking, and the great director delivers a visually stirring film with plenty of poignant moments.

A.K.A. Dreams, Yume.

Cast:
Akira Terao: I
Martin Scorsese: Vincent Van Gogh
Mitsunori Isaki: 'I' as a boy
Toshihiko Nakano: 'I' as a young child
Yoshitaka Zushi: Pvt. Noguchi
Chosuke Ikariya: The crying demon
Hisashi Igawa: Nuclear Plant Worker
Mieko Harada: The Snow Fairy
Mitsuko Baisho: Mother of 'I'

Warner Brothers presents a film by Toho Films. Written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. Rated PG, for scary images and mature themes. Running time: 120 minutes. Original Japanese theatrical release date: May 25, 1990. In Japanese, with English subtitles.