Review of Dreams (1990) by Jon C — 10 Nov 2017

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.