Review of Dreams (1990) by Edith N — 05 Dec 2010

Perhaps We All Dream Together.

I am frankly astonished to see that this movie is, however barely, listed as Rotten according to the handful of critics who reviewed it. I realize that I am not exactly the core movie-watching audience; I am certainly aware by now that I watch a lot of movies other people don't and have a lot of opinions contrary to others'. But I have to tell you, I really don't honestly see how you can be an intelligent film-goer and not see the quality of this film. I'll concede that I can see why you wouldn't necessarily like it, but maybe that's another one of my differences. I'm pretty good at saying, "This is a good movie, even though I don't like it." Though I'm much better at saying, "I love this movie even though it's terrible." Still, it's astonishing how many people are incapable of either.

Saying what this movie is about is difficult, because it isn't entirely linear. In theory, it's a collection of short subjects. Apparently, they were all actually dreams Kurosawa had at one point or another, and I can see that in them. They all do have a distinctly dreamlike quality. We go from the first, a story about a young boy who disobeys his mother's instructions and witnesses the wedding procession of two fox-spirits, through past the appearance of Van Gogh (Martin Scorsese!) when a man (Akira Terao) steps into one of his paintings, and ending at last at with a joyous funeral procession. And of course that's only three of the tales Kurosawa presents us. There are five others, some lyrical and some distressing. A man, I believe the same one, confronts soldiers come back from the dead because they cannot believe they aren't still alive. A nuclear power plant explodes and Fuji burns red.

It is awfully fashionable these days to point out how weird Japan is. I try to balance this with a knowledge that, culturally speaking, we're probably weird to them. It's easy to be smug about another culture when you don't really have to bother understanding it. On the other hand, I find it hard to figure out anywhere our own culture could be seen as quite as weird as Japan's. Yes, there's our genital fixation--I bring your attention to such things as "truck nuts" and "neuticles"--but the fashion our actual people wear, as opposed to that we see on the runways (and really, how do those designers make money?), is relatively steady. Yes, I find the Loli Goth fashion lovely, but a lot of other Japanese clothing trends decidedly aren't and don't make any sense to me. Of course, I don't understand why 1984 is suddenly back in fashion, either--and only the least attractive bits at that.

All that said, this movie is a prime example of how Japan is, to Western eyes, weird. Oh, it's lovely. Even when people are watching the nuclear fallout sweeping toward them, there is still something lyrical about it. But after the boy sees the kitsune and returns home, he finds out that they have left a knife with his mother (Mitsuko Baishô) as a sign that, now that he has seen their wedding procession, he must now kill himself. The kid is at most eight, probably younger, but there it is. On the other hand, there is "The Blizzard," which shows a near-universal feeling that the end of death by freezing will be peaceful. Yes, the Japanese have an actual spirit representing that, but I must tell you that I doubt they're the only culture to do so. And the stories which are clear fears of war, nuclear fallout, and mutation are pretty universal to the last, say, sixty-five years. Especially in Japan; he's done other movies about it.

Yesterday was my birthday party; today is my birthday. I do not, I must say, hold out hope for the box set, but as of yesterday, I now have two Kurosawa movies as opposed to none. My last purchase before the holidays--I stop buying things like this for myself in about mid-November--was [i]Ikiru[/i], and it came in yesterday's mail. And Allen, I am delighted to say, also bought me a Kurosawa movie. He bought me [i]The Hidden Fortress[/i]. I have said for some time now that Kurosawa is my favourite director; there are several reasons for this, not least his ability to make a dreamlike story about a boy dealing with some sort of peach blossom spirits as fascinating to Western eyes as Japanese ones. However, until yesterday, I did not actually own any of his movies. I am greatly pleased that this has now been rectified.