夢 (1990)
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A legendary director explores his own subconscious through a series of eight distinct, magical vignettes.
The story
Dreams is a magical realist anthology film consisting of eight distinct vignettes inspired by the actual recurring dreams of director Akira Kurosawa. The film follows the adventures of a 'surrogate Kurosawa' through various segments, each exploring different themes such as childhood, spirituality, and art. Rather than a single linear narrative, the episodic structure presents a series of vivid, dreamlike experiences, including a boy encountering fox weddings, a family's lost orchard, and a mountaineer's struggle against a blizzard. The collection serves as a visual exploration of the director's inner life and memories.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
The film is an episodic anthology of eight 'dreams' featuring a surrogate Kurosawa. 'Sunshine Through the Rain' follows a boy who defies his mother's warning and witnesses a fox wedding, later being forced to seek their forgiveness with a knife. 'The Peach Orchard' depicts a boy who sees the spirits of felled peach trees perform a dance to restore the orchard briefly. 'The Blizzard' shows mountaineers facing a yuki-onna who tries to lure them to their deaths. 'The Tunnel' features a WWII commander haunted by the ghosts of his platoon. 'Crows' sees an art student meeting Vincent van Gogh within his paintings. 'Mount Fuji in Red' depicts a nuclear meltdown where a man explains the radioactive isotopes to a woman before leaping to his death. 'The Weeping Demon' follows a man pursued by a mutated human in a post-nuclear wasteland. Finally, 'The Village of the Water Mills' shows a man visiting a secluded village that has forsaken modern technology, ending with a joyful funeral procession.
- First release year
- 1990
- Runtime (minutes)
- 119
- Production countries
- Japan; United States
- Original languages
- Japanese
- Directors
- Akira Kurosawa
- Writers
- Akira Kurosawa · writer
- Cast and characters
- Akira Terao · I; Mitsunori Isaki · I as an adolescent; Toshihiko Nakano · I as a young boy; Mitsuko Baisho · Mother; Mieko Harada · Snow woman; Toshie Negishi · Woman carrying a child; Yoshitaka Zushi · Private Noguchi; Hisashi Igawa · Power-plant worker; Chosuke Ikariya · Weeping demon; Chishu Ryu · Old man; Martin Scorsese · Vincent van Gogh
- Genres
- magical realist; anthology; fantasy; drama
- Themes
- childhood; spirituality; art; death; mistakes and transgressions against nature
- Tone and mood
- hypnotically serene; magical; mysterious; practical; funny; polemical
- Premise and plot tags
- anthology; magical realism; dreams; anti-nuclear; environmental issues; Vincent van Gogh
- Source material / true-story basis
- Akira Kurosawa's own dreams
- Content notes
- nuclear holocaust; death
- Reception
- The film has consistently received positive reviews and was praised for its opulent visions and serene staging.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 6.60/10 · scale: 10 · review count: 30
- Production trivia
- The film was made five years after Ran with assistance from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.; The 'Crows' segment is the only part where characters do not speak Japanese, using English and French instead.; The 'Tunnel' segment features a 16-minute shot that Kurosawa claimed was a world record for a single film magazine.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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