FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Akira Kurosawa - Dreams

The cinema resembles a dream. The surrealists tried to suspend time and space and to capture the disturbing experiences of the subconscious. Akira Kurosawa does the opposite. His dreams contain biographical passages, are filmed soberly and with restraint. Akira Kurosawa's dreams seem almost naturalistic. If you emphasize the personal, it takes on a universal meaning. We meet the young Kurosawa (Mitsunori Isaki) as he attends the forbidden ceremony of a fox wedding. Enraged, his mother (Mitsuko Baisho) confronts him with the choice to ask the foxes for forgiveness or to commit hara-kiri. This may seem strange. However, what remains in our memory is how meticulously Kurosawa films the house of his childhood. And everyone has these extremely detailed memories of his childhood! Then we meet the middle-aged Kurosawa (Akira Terao) again during a funeral procession. This time he records his father's house, as if FILM takes on the function of memory. As we witness the memories of childhood as well as adulthood, we become aware of how mortal we are. Then a group of mountain climbers is fighting a snowstorm. One by one they succumb - only Kurosawa holds out and meets a snow demon. An apparition who wants to kill him. What does this desolate fable want to tell us other than the futility of human resistance against a hostile nature? In Dreams, nature is cruelly depicted. Evil demons bathing in blood. Man's descent into the deep. We meet Kurosawa again as an aspiring artist visiting a Van Gogh exhibition. He dives into the world of paintings and meets the painter himself (Martin Scorsese with a lot of make-up). Van Gogh gives a monologue about how man is threatened to be devoured by art. This is exactly what happens to Kurosawa in Dreams. He literally can't find his way out of the artwork. Isn't it the case that the young artist has to give up his fearful influences in order to find himself and not sink into the role models?