Jume
Screenplay:
黒澤明Composer:
池辺晋一郎Cast:
Akira Terao, 原田美枝子, Yoshitaka Zushi, Hisashi Igawa, Chishû Ryû, Martin Scorsese, Tetsu Watanabe, 倍賞美津子, Chosuke Ikariya, 天田益男, 小野真弓, 中嶋しゅう, Noriko Honma, Shigeo KatôVOD (1)
Plots(1)
Unfolding in a series of mythic vignettes, this late work by Akira Kurosawa brings eight of the beloved director’s own night time visions, informed by tales from Japanese folklore, to cinematic life. In a visually sumptuous journey through the master’s unconscious, tales of childlike wonder give way to apocalyptic visions: A young boy stumbles on a fox wedding in a forest; a soldier confronts the ghosts of the war dead; a power-plant meltdown smothers a seaside landscape in radioactive fumes. Interspersed with reflections on the redemptive power of art, including a richly textured tribute to Vincent van Gogh (played by Martin Scorsese), Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams is both a showcase for its maker’s imagination at its most unbridled and a deeply personal lament for a world at the mercy of human ignorance. (Criterion)
(more)Reviews (2)
One of the main problems is that the dreams are unbalanced. If only just the dreams... Only Crows meets the parameters of a classic dream, otherwise the rest is a hodge-podge of dreams as in wishes (presented here in the form of naive humanist theses similar to the typical Miss line “I want world peace") and, with some poetic license, something that could be considered to be new-age (of course humanist) kaidans. Only three of the eight stories could be considered really outstanding: The Blizzard (the atmosphere!), Crows (nicely playful in a dreamy way) and Mount Fuji in Red (the only one where Kurosawa managed to put across his message in a hard-hitting and not just didactic manner).
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Even though there are images here that are truly beautiful, images that show that Akira Kurosawa delved even deeper into lyricism towards the end of his career, it's rather his more narrative-driven films that appeal to me and that I truly enjoy. From this, I had the feeling that it was more of a very well-executed artistic exercise.
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