By a strange act of coincidence I am just now (1600 Hrs on 17 May 2009) watching the above movie of Akira Kurosawa in WB Channel. WB is showing a series of award winning world movies under their banner called 'Cinametheque'.
Dreams is a set of small clippings each of which is a dream.
Frankly most of the dreams are dark and foreboding. I liked just three of the eight - one in which a budding artists 'walks' into a Vincent Van Gogh painting and meets with the real painter himself. Van Gogh has a bandage round his head, and explains he had cut his own ears off as he could not paint them properly.
In the Watermill Village, an young man chances upon a village with no name where people live without any modern appliance or devices including electricity. They have no temples and just carry the dead upto a cemetery on top of a hill. This is a classic case of the fight between modern living and living with nature.
In another dream, an army platoon commander walks through a small road tunnel after he is pushed through by an angry growling dog. When he reaches the other end, he hears a soldier marching through the tunnel. He turns around and see one of the soldiers from the platoon standing before him. His whole platoon had been killed, and he starts fighting a battle with own mind to accept the fact and his own failure. This is worsened when his own platoon walks through the tunnel and stands before him. I could understand the torment the commander was going through in his own mind.
I was surprised to learn this movie was with made George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. And, Martin Scorsese acts as Van Gogh!
WoW!
Must get my hands on this and other DVDs of Akira Kurosawa.
For those who are interested Moser Baer has released a set of World Movies, though they are not cheap.
Cheers
