Dreams

“Dreams,” directed in 1990 by Akira Kurosawa, is a surreal Japanese movie which recreates eight dreams that Kurosawa claimed to have had repeatedly. Each dream is starkly different from the last, yet they all leave a similar whimsical sensation of floating. Though the film is slow and frankly, lacking of a tangible plot line, the concept is compelling because of its accuracy in depicting the experience of human dreams. During each bizarre sequence I felt strong emotions of frustration, sadness, nostalgia, confusion and fear.

The first dream follows a little boy into the woods in the rain, where he finds a strange procession of people in traditional clothing with fox faces. When the people notice him, they become angry, and the boy runs home to his mother. But, the mother then refuses to allow the boy past the gate because the foxes had told her that her son must now kill himself for having witnessed their special ritual. She gives him a sword to stab himself with, and the boy flees, searching for the foxes in order to beg for forgiveness. The visuals of this part of the film are quietly beautiful, featuring simple imagery and the gleaming forest.

I was also moved by the dream which involves a soldier in a tunnel, trying to convince a fleet of soldiers that they are dead. He is the only one who survived the battle; the fleet of soldiers are silent and unresponsive and do not seem human. Their eyes are hollowed out and they move mechanically; it is heart-wrenching and terrifying. The heightened drama of the scene replicates the sensation of nightmares, that of frustrating sadness and anxiety.

An interesting addition to the movie is Martin Scorsese’s cameo as Van Gogh. A man enters the paintings of Van Gogh, searching for the artist by rolling through the yellow fields. Scorsese appears with an easel and speaks in a distinct New York accent. He wears a bandage around his ear, explaining that he had to slice it off because he couldn’t quite paint it right in a self portrait. The bright imagery of Van Gogh’s world is incredibly dreamlike in its hazy surrealism.

Another dream depicts a group of men stumbling in pain through an impossible blizzard; another depicts the struggles of a group of people in the aftermath of a volcanic explosion. The movie ends with a peaceful scene on the banks of a river by a windmill, where the main character speaks with a wise man. Although the dreams do not have obvious connections to one another, the boy and the man featured in the dreams seem to be the same person. Each dream seems representative of a different stage in his life. It is interesting to watch the dreams evolve over time, as the man grows and his fears change.

The dreams were sometimes too slow and the metaphors were often too obvious and forced, yet they were so delectable and emotionally engaging that I kept watching. The film was quite simply, hypnotizing.