View Larger Image |
Akira Kurosawa's Dreams Actors: Akira Terao, Mitsuko Baisho Directors: Ishirô Honda, Akira Kurosawa Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen Format: Color, Widescreen Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) Running Time: 120 minutes Studio: Warner Home Video Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Region Code: 1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2003-03-18 Buy from Amazon |
 "kon na yume o mita"This is an extraordinarily beautiful movie that is at parts mysetic, fanciful, and downright depresing. The viewer experience everything from a fox wedding, a gorgeous scene with traditional wedding dress, Doll festival dolls coming to life, the dolls have gorgeous Heian era atire, a severe blizard, with the appearance of the yukionna, a moving scene of a former commander of a japanese unit who meets his ghostly shoulders. This is probably my favorite scene in the movie because the officer shows his pure sadness for the meaningless deaths of his soldiers, and the cruel fate that awaited him aftr the war. In the fifth scene we meet vincent van gogh withing a painting and he discusses the creative process, Mount Fuji in Red is a strange scene in which Kuroawa displays his fears of nuclear technology, the next scene shows mutations caused by the nuclear power plant explosion. The last scene is set in a quiet village away from the modern world, and even though the main part of the scene is a funeral it is quite a moving piece about the celebration of life not the tragedy of death. Great movie at a great price. "Breathtaking Beauty. Glorious and a Masterpiece!"I love this Film! It contains eight Dreams, Sunshine Through the Rain, The Peach Orchard, The Blizzard, The Tunnel, Crows, Mount Fuji in Red, The Weeping Demon and Village of the Watermills. Every Dream is unique, beautifull and Breathtaking. The Dreams shows us how destructive humans are towards the nature and ourselves. Kurosawa criticizes the past, the presence and the future. Kurosawa (not the real kurosawa) plays in every Dream, from when he was a child in Sunshine through the Rain to when he is old and visits the Village of the Watermills. All in all This is the best film ever and my personal favorite Kurosawa film. Its Beauty is so splendid and I loved every single Dream. I encourage everyone in the world to watch this film. The Masters Masterpiece "In Dreams I walk with you"Akira Kurosawa's dreams are better than mine. If this is what he saw when he closed his eyes, then I can understand how from that mind sprang the Seven Samurai and the rest. "Dreams" is maybe the most personal, most "Japanese" of Kurosawa's films, and along with that it is perhaps the most difficult one for Western audiences to appreciate. This is saying nothing against Western audiences, but many of the themes and myths on display may not be familiar, and the imagery and metaphors may be lost without the appropriate background. I definitely appreciated it more after living in Japan, and becoming familiar with the countries folklore and literary story-telling style. Hina Dolls, the Yuki Onna, the mountain villiges like islands of tradition amongst concrete modern Japan... "Dreams" is beautiful, on a purely visual level. The cinematography is exquisite and the colors and light are displayed with the eye of a painter. It is appropriate that Van Gogh plays a role in one of the many dreams. Like Van Gogh, the stories in "Dreams" are expressionistic and vivid, yet with the subdued emotions that is the hallmark of Japanese literature. This is not the wild, raw statement of a younger Kurosawa. Story-wise, the dreams play with the themes of death and loss, both human and of nature. The displacement of Japanese forests, the lack of safety standards at nuclear power plants, the loss of traditional Japan, the pointless loss of lives in war...melancholy themes at best. Yet at the end, hope is offered, in a small nook and cranny, like a flower blooming amongst concrete. The DVD itself is a small disappointment, and I would rather have this belong to the Criterion Collection, but better to have it than not have it.  "Uninteresting and very slow..."When I read the very positive reviews,I was planning to buy it straight away, well fortunately I rented it first. I thought this movie was really slow it seemed to drag on and on. For example, lots of times somebody is walking to a place, or just standing still for minutes long, and you could get the point after 30 seconds or something. The visuals of the movie were ok and sometimes very original, the effects I remember the best were the of the man walking in Van Gogh paintings. The stories are filled with various lessons and philosophies about live, but somehow a lot of this felt cliched. I think I understood the deeper meaning of most of the stories, but it failed very much to impress. It was as if I had heard or read these lessons about the destructivity of the human species for example, lots of times. That's my main reason, I seemed to already know that, and now somebody is repeating it for me in some dreams. "Kurosawa is a God"Cinematography like no other. Beautiful stuff. Like a live action haiku. I fully recommend it. No words... Dark and melencholy at times, sweet and lighthearted at others. I love this movie, and I hope you can have a chance to see it once. A triumph of a great director who has influenced some of the most well-known directors of our times. |
