What movie comes to mind when you think of Akira Kurosawa? It may be the "Seven Samurai" that is regarded as a god by countless fans, it may be the textbook "Rashomon" that pioneered the use of up and down shots, it may be the "Shadow Warrior" that influenced Zhang Yimou's life, or it may be the commercial blockbuster "Tsubaki Thirty Lang" that is not outdated today.
Akira Kurosawa's classic films are too many, and they are also taken out and re-read every three to five years, but today I will first talk about Akira Kurosawa's late-life work that is not heard of by ordinary people, the penultimate film of Akira Kurosawa's career, "Dream" released in 1990.
Although "Dream" is not the peak of Kurosawa's directorial career in most people's minds, it is definitely a very special film in Akira Kurosawa's directing career.
Because compared with Akira Kurosawa's other works, "Dream" is not only Akira Kurosawa's only short film set film, but also his most personal image expression.
Sun rain
A child sits idly in front of the house, it is raining outside and the mother is packing up her things and telling the child that such a rainy day is not allowed to go out. Because foxes do weddings in such weather do not want people to see, if they are seen by children, they will be angry.
Despite this, the curious and playful child went out and saw the fox's wedding, and the child fled back to the door after being discovered by the fox spirit, but did not expect that the mother did not let the child go home at all, and had to let the child go to the end of the rainbow to apologize and return the knife before entering the house.
The child has no other choice but to go to the end of the rainbow, the child walks to the end of the rainbow, where there are colorful flowers and a beautiful rainbow, and the camera is also frozen in this oil painting scene at the end.
Tao yuan
The younger brother brought water to the sister and her friends who had passed the festival, but found that there was one less person in the group of girls, and the younger brother curiously asked the sister who was less, but the sister said that there were no fewer people, there were always so many people. The younger brother was determined to be one less person after repeated confirmation, and the sister felt impatient and drove the younger brother out, and the younger brother found the missing girl after going out.
The younger brother followed him all the way to a field where the terraces were full of puppets (a creature with a peach tree as their soul), and the puppeteer said that the child's family had cut down all the peach blossoms in the garden and sentenced him not to go home.
The younger brother cried bitterly, but not because he could not return home but because he also liked the peach orchard, and he was also sad because of the encounter of the young puppet and the disappearance of the peach tree.
The young puppeteer was touched by the purity of the child, and the dancing performance showed him, but just danced and disappeared, leaving only a weak peach tree.
Snow
A survey team encountered a snowstorm in the snowy mountains, and the captain kept encouraging his teammates to move forward, saying that the Shadow Emperor was not far away, and they must be able to reach and never fall asleep.
But the wind and snow were too big, and one by one the team members gave up the hope of life and fell. Until the end the captain could not hold on, lying in the snow gradually lost consciousness, this is a beautiful woman in the snow, she gently caressed the captain to try to hold him down to prevent him from getting up, from the beginning of the soft push to the final death of the choke, the captain has been subconscious resistance and rise, and finally the woman failed, she revealed the face of the evil ghost and left angrily, and it was the strong blizzard that left with her.
The captain regained consciousness and woke up the members of the team who had been buried in the snow, and the camp was not far from them.
tunnel
This is a dream about the reflection of World War II, and it is also the most well-known passage in the movie "Dream". A Japanese officer after the defeat in World War II crossed a tunnel on his way home, and in the tunnel he saw his men, the soldiers who had died on the battlefield, lined up, with their chests raised, looking like they were dead.
Facing his dead subordinates, the captain cried out in pain: "Listen... I know how you feel, but... The third squad has all been killed, you are all killed on the battlefield, I am sorry, I am not dead, I survived, I have no face to face you, I sent you to the battlefield to die, this is all my fault, of course I can do everything... Blame this stupid war, but I can't do it, my recklessness and rashness are unforgivable, but I was also captured by the enemy, in a prisoner-of-war camp, living a life worse than death, but... Right now...... When I look at you... I feel the same pain, I know that you have suffered and suffered more than I have, but honestly... I...... I really want to die with you, believe me, I would rather die, I feel your sorrow, they say that you sacrificed your lives for the country... But you died with no dignity, but... Your return to the Yang in this way will not help, please! Go back! Go back and rest in peace!"
But the men had no intention of going back, and the captain could only order all of them to turn backwards and walk in unison, and finally watched the troops disappear into the darkness of the tunnel.
crow
A painter in the gallery to see Van Gogh's works, gradually he entered the painting, and met Van Gogh, at this time Van Gogh is not yet understood by the world, he said that he kept running like a locomotive, painting in the only time left in his life, no time to chat with the painter.
Van Gogh took care of himself and left, and the painter continued to pursue Van Gogh among Van Gogh's paintings, and the painter finally chased Van Gogh, but he did not come forward to disturb him in painting, but only took off his hat from a distance to pay tribute.
Red Mt. Fuji
In the distance, the ice and snow of Mt. Fuji melt, like a volcano bursting with lava, the residents of the city flee in the streets, and the whole scene is full of endless chaos as if the end of the world is coming.
A young man learned through a conversation between a scientist and a woman that Japan's nuclear power plant had exploded and the entire city had been contaminated with radiation, and the three tried to escape, eventually escaping to the seashore, which is the border of Japan, and they have no way to go.
The poisonous clouds approached them step by step, and the scientists took off their eyes and jumped into the sea in despair to commit suicide. The young man didn't want to die like this, took off his clothes and desperately fanned away the poisonous gas, but all this was a mantis arm as a car, and the highly toxic red gas did not hurry to wrap him up.
The devil weeping
The seventh dream can be seen as a sequel to the previous dream, where the radiation of chemistry turns the world into a wasteland, where a normal human encounters a humanoid monster.
The monster tells him that humans have been irradiated into horned ogres, and when night falls they will cry out in pain, they want to die but no one can kill them, and the ogres can only bear the pain forever.
And the two-horned and triangular ogres will also oppress the one-horned ogres. The entire human society has completely ceased to exist, leaving only the demons of the weak and the sunflowers that have become huge due to radiation.
At the end of the dream, the ogres that fell into the night chased the dreamer as if it were a nightmare that would never wake up.
The village of watermills
A young man from the city came to a village where there was no trace of urbanization or even electricity, as if it were as clean as a paradise and not like the existence of this era.
The people here are cheerful and friendly, and do not feel that the backwardness of urbanization is a loss, but rather hate the so-called metropolis, and the people here are also very long-lived.
The day the youth came just in time for a funeral, and compared to the sadness of other funerals, the funeral in this village was incomparably light and cheerful, and the living people were happy for the dead to return to the embrace of nature. Such a scene deeply affected young people.
"Dreams" are Akira Kurosawa's eight dreams, and they are also the dreams of his life and all Japanese people. In the first two dreams, we can see a child's fascination with legends and stories, a loss of the beauty of nature, and even a fear of the spirit of Bushido. We can also visualize in the third dream how strong the human will to survive is.
We can see from the fourth dream to the reflection and disgust of Kurosawa's generation on war, and we can also understand the greatness and paranoia of genius in the fifth dream.
The sixth and seventh dreams show Akira Kurosawa's reflections on social progress, on human behavior, on the future of Japan and even about the future of mankind.
In the eighth dream, we finally saw the legendary director return to basics and yearn for the natural side.
"Dream" may be Akira Kurosawa's most straightforward and simple film that does not require deep thinking, or even the most preachy film, but it is also the film that feels the most comfortable and closest to the thinking of this great man among Kurosawa's many films.
Akira Kurosawa is far away, but we can already look back at the director's life through his "Dream".