Home > Fantasy >

Dreams

Dreams (1990)

August. 24,1990
|
7.7
|
PG
| Fantasy Drama

A collection of magical tales based upon the actual dreams of director Akira Kurosawa.

...

Watch Trailer

Cast

Similar titles

Reviews

TinsHeadline
1990/08/24

Touches You

More
Marketic
1990/08/25

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

More
Mandeep Tyson
1990/08/26

The acting in this movie is really good.

More
Kimball
1990/08/27

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

More
sharky_55
1990/08/28

Despite rapidly deteriorating eyesight, Kurosawa at age 75 made Ran, a Shakespearean tale with a colour palette so striking that it might have been Pollock himself flinging blood onto the canvas. Despite needing assistance to frame basic shots, and having only basic guidance from Kurosawa's illustrated storyboards, its style is arresting, mingling blood and smoke and ash in an arena where God himself is absent. 5 years on, he would make Dreams, a title apt not only for the surreal thread of logic and imagination running through its narrative, but also for how Kurosawa must have conceived of its creation. With barely functioning eyesight, how much of reality was he really seeing, and how much of his dreams made their way onto the filmstrip? The first skit, 'Sunshine Through The Rain', is situated within a near exact replica of Kurosawa's own childhood home, a surrogate for the director to relive his youthful curiosities and anxieties. The boy (aptly named I) ignores his mother's warnings of interrupting the wedding processions of the forest foxes, and stumbles upon not animals, but a troupe of actors in Kabuki masks, performing a highly stylised pantomime. Even a child his age knows when his presence is a gross intrusion, hiding behind the trees. As if on command, the foxes pivot on the stroke of the flute and drum, and their stares force him away. To say this is unsettling would be putting it lightly. A boy of similar age discovers the sins of his family in 'The Peach Orchard', being confronted with the anthropomorphised peach trees as obina and mebina dolls, all sporting ghostly white make-up. Their dialogue seems otherworldly, filtered through some heavenly speaker instead of a normal sound mix. This isn't a scolding, it's a divine condemnation. As quickly as they summon the peach blossoms for the boy's brief bliss, they also quickly disappear, leaving behind a young boy clambering over barren field in a boxed-in medium shot. Kurosawa cuts with viciousness here, one moment filling the frame with pink petals and a glimpse of a mysterious girl (which may reference Kurosawa's older sister who passed away young), the next ripping it all away. As the 'boy' grows, he finds himself in increasingly bizarre situations in which he discovers a world in topsy turvy, with both moral and conventional logic tossed out the window. 'The Blizzard' sees an adolescent Kurosawa and his climbing crew buffeted by howling wind and snowstorm, hacking at the ice with futility and gaining little progress. One by one the mountaineers become frozen statues, and the leader is almost seduced by the Yuki-onna's song, who calls him to his next life. The scene is obviously shot on a small set, judging by the fake snow and the climber's circling and back-pedalling route, but Kurosawa's sound design, which blends a mass of roaring wind and the serene tones of the Yuki-onna, as good as throws us into the fray. The next vignette, 'The Tunnel', continues the line of dream logic; an army commander strolls through idyllic mountainside, but where is the rest of his platoon, and from which nearby battlefield did he escape? He is the only survivor of a suicidal charge, his departed comrades arranged in military file and salute, deep blue faces with blackened eyes. The fact that they do nothing to acknowledge the past atrocity and the culpability of the surviving commander only deepens his grief; he unloads the anxieties and lingering trauma of a country ravaged after the world war onto their blank faces, stony manifestations of his survivor's guilt that will stay with him for the rest of his life. At this point, Kurosawa shifts from what could be an entirely personal and autobiographical story to broader musings on human nature and its interaction with the wider environment. 'Crows' and 'Village of the Watermills' bookend the narrative's entry into a harsh, alien landscape post-nuclear bombardment, where sunflowers grow ten feet tall amidst fields of grey ash, and hordes of mutated 'survivors' weep into pools of red. What Kurosawa does here with red mist and fog rivals some of his best work in Yojimbo, the traveller once again buffeted from all sides, unable to clearly mark a path forward. By depicting nature's recoil in such a grotesque, bodily form (the volcano in 'Mount Fuji in Red' practically spits fire and blood), he mourns for the natural beauty that has been desecrated by modernity. Dreams' didactic label isn't inaccurate, but it's a minor grievance when you consider the enduring strength of the director's hope and moral sensibility even in the twilight of his career. We witness the final vignette's potency, see the final hurrah of the funeral procession for an age that has almost faded. The windmills may have stopped turning, and his eyesight may be gone, but Kurosawa still sees so clearly through his hopes and dreams.

More
Jon Corelis
1990/08/29

Akira Kurosawa's Dreams is a melding of autobiography, zen philosophy, Noh drama, Japanese folklore, and modern anxieties about nuclear and ecological doom. It is a masterpiece by a genius director, and one of cinema's great studies in color (comparable only so far as I can think of to two much happier films, Renoir's French Cancan and Minelli's An American in Paris.) Some people have complained about the film's long periods of little or no action, an apparently simplistic morality, inaccurate science, non-realistic dance sequences, and obviously artificial special effects, not understanding that all these elements are quite deliberate stylistic features consciously employed to devastating effect by a master film maker in total control of his medium. If you don't understand this when you see it, keep watching it again and again until you do understand it. The Criterion DVD is of superb quality with a useful booklet about the film.

More
tassos-79995
1990/08/30

I borrowed the DVD of "Dreams" from my public library and saw it two days ago, then liked it so much I saw it again yesterday evening.What a Great Movie. It is rare that I like the DvDs I borrow, most of them are a pain to watch, Hollywood movies in particular, while their actors are professional and polished, the scripts are usually crap, 9 out of 10. I liked all 8 sketches, but some more than others. Great Cinematography.My favorite should have been the Van Gogh sketch, being my favorite painter and all, but Scorcese as Van Gogh did not inspire me.I best liked the last dream, the 'joyous' funeral procession in the village of the watermills. I could see it again and again.I wish Kurosawa had made a commentary or interview they included in the DVD with his thoughts on that and the other sketches.

More
Vihren Mitev
1990/08/31

Making small time jump (which will be covered in time) in the study of the films of Kurosawa, we fall into one of his already colored films. Indeed very motley, perhaps one of the first compilations of short films sampled together. Naturally the film has complete effect directed far into the future of humanity, revealed by the last dream that is presented to us.Through dreamy and innocent world of young children, wandering young man, all the way to the wise centenarian; through perpetual motion of life resembling river, the gaze of man encounters with the people around him. He remains defenseless and fragile - what his nature is in fact - but loving enough to think about others, nature and the future generations.Through the black and white mountains, enchanting forests, paintings of van Gogh (my most favorite painter), the village of mills, and to the horrors of past wars and accidents with nuclear energy, the most pressing environmental issues of post-modernity, dreams tell us the story of a man who may have billions of faces, who at some point may become presumptuous and start to live at the expense of others. The wise old man asks us - how smart scientists are when they can not understand the heart of nature? With their discoveries and creations they cloud the thinking of the people, which pollutes not only nature but also their hearts.So dreams have a strong message from the director, and are his call to humility and listening to the harmony of the universe, because it brings us peace, quietness, kindness and love. And the man does not need nothing else. A story told to us by the sensitive father of cinema.http://vihrenmitevmovies.blogspot.com/

More