Kurosawa Noms Undergrad's Heart

This morning, as the rain fell and I was sipping tea, I pulled up "Akira Kurosawa's Dreams" on my Netflix queue and was somewhat taken aback by the lush images pregnant with historical and contemporary cultural context. I discovered Kurosawa's dramatic eye for Japanese detail a couple summers ago with the help of a film-buff friend of mine. Granted, I'd seen "Seven Samurai" and excerpts from some of his other films, the great name in international film direction didn't stick out until my friend compelled me to binge-view anime, YouTube clips of regional television, video game sequences, and, of course, films, all of which seem to be graded against the Kurosawa standard.

What struck me about "Dreams" was how relevant it was as a form of literature/film. The film's protagonist is none other than the writer/director himself. One of the last films he was to make, the film captures his dreams throughout life, creating a very intimate autobiography of not just an artist, but of a nation/culture as well. As a boy, he fears tradition, seeing the spirits of his ancestors amidst the trees who then send a pig spirit to take his life lest he not beg for forgiveness--if they choose not to forgive him, they have already provided the katana he is to use to commit seppuku. Through his portrayed dream reality, we see the end of tradition and the rise of nuclear proliferation following a long history of war and industrialization.

Aside from the film's beauty, the loose "story" (a word I'm reluctantly using because the film progresses more like a Mahler symphony than even a story-cycle film like the Raymond Carver-based "Short Cuts") blossoms from moments in Japanese cultural history. Chronology seems to determine each section's tempo while fear and loathing crescendo as the artist "I" (i.e., Kurosawa) comes into himself. Although the experiences portrayed are already universal, Kurosawa attempts to clearly bridge the East-West divide by bringing in van Gogh (played by Martin Scorsese) who illuminates the role of artist/worker/citizen; although this section of the film is experimental in nature and meant to be rather touching, it's awkward and contrived, only worsened by the fact that Scorsese simply cannot act. While enduring this section, called "Crows," I felt compelled to fast-forward into what I hoped would be a nice save; however, I loyally continued and came to realize that this was a necessary intermission for the viewer as the following section, "Mt. Fuji In Red," depicts nuclear fallout in a way that reminisces about the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the same hysteria portrayed in the infamous Odessa steps scene from The Battleship Potemkin. After nuclear holocaust, the film leaves us with how "life should be," retreating back to nature after humanity has learned its lessons from violence and terror, discarding technology and re-learning what it means to live. "I," annihilated by nuclear fallout in the shadow of Mt. Fuji, must rediscover himself with the help of a benevolent centennial, a sort of harbinger into the Nirvana that is living with nature as nature and not the soulless product of technology. The film appropriately ends by celebrating the life of a 99-year-old woman, the villagers of her town (along with her former 103-year-old lover) parade along the river bank, huzzah-ing and reveling in the beauty of life.

This film immediately lept to the top of my list of what to recommend for rainy days, times that are already so suitable for existential contemplation.