Dreams (5/16/11)

On Monday, we watched a movie via Netflix called Dreams, written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. It is a movie that has a series of eight short stories from Kurosawa’s personal memories and dreams. In the description part of Netflix, it said that this movie is “cerebral” and “mind-bending”. In the eight short films, I believe that most of the stories had significant meanings. The first story, “Sunshine through the Rain”, the lesson learned is to listen to your elders because they do know better, and because if you don’t you face certain consequences. The story titled “Blizzard” is the lesson to tell you to never give up. The story titled “Tunnel” is to face your guilt and learn to let go as well, to try and move on even if it seems like the most difficult thing to do. In another story called “Crows”, a painter at a museum is viewing artwork from Vincent Van Gogh. He is then teleported into the painting and searches for the famous painter himself. I believe this story is about going where you need to go in order to get your inspiration. In this story, the painter tries to dream up scenarios of how and where Vincent Van Gogh got his inspiration from. I think that’s an interesting way to look for your own inspiration, which is to try and figure out how the great artists of their time got inspired. “The Weeping Demon,” I would say is a story about how war is extremely horrific. In this case, nuclear war because of the severe consequences, like mutation caused by radiation, mutant plants, and absolutely no source of food except on other mutant humans, the “demons”.

The last story was my favorite story. It had a very wise old man who talked about how in his village, they lived very simple lives that kept them in tune with nature. They didn’t have electricity, or tractors for farming, or fuel for heat. They used natural things like candles for light, horses for the crops for farming, and wood for heat.  He went on to say that Man has gone and created so many things that are polluting the Earth and that so many people have become accustomed to man-made objects that they can no longer live without them.  Which I believe is very true. We live in a digital age where we have electronic devices for almost everything these days. And lastly, the old man says that the funerals for the locals are a happy celebration because it is a way to thank someone who lived long and worked hard. It is not a funeral where everything is solemn. Also I thought it was funny how the old man said that the woman who passed away was his first true love, but then she broke his heart and left him for another man and yet he just laughed it off. You could just tell that he was happy the way he lived his life in the village with no name, only to be called by others not from the village, “Village of the Watermills”.