Dreams

For our class meeting Wednesday we got to look at the 1990 film "Dreams" which was a movie based an actual dreams from the director Akira Kurosawa. Akira turned his eight dreams into what they say are eight short stories that are suppose to depict eight different stages of his life. From magical to realism, and after watching this film you kind of get to understand what that means. Now to be honest at first I had no idea what this movie was about and what it really meant. More or less after watching a dream or two I kind of got the idea that the dreams were going to deal with a lot of symbolism and metaphors. Since the movie was based more on imagery than dialogues it was really going to be important that I pay close attention with observation in order for me to understand what was going on.

Foxes Wedding
Honestly I had no idea what was going on or what this dream was about at this point. All I understood was that the little boy had left when his mother told him not too and typically when you disobey your mother your bound to get in trouble one way or another. So when he left and stumbled into the Forrest there was so much smoke going on it had a lot mystery behind it. It left me pretty clueless and unclear what was going to come out from the mists of the fog and to my surprise it did! Abstract, scary, and bright were all words that went through my mind as the mystery people came and marched out. It was super creative and unique the way they danced or marched. There body movement was nutty and the way they all paused in a synchronized fashion was magnificent. It still didn't help clarify who they were, but to me it didn't matter. Because I was so star struck on how weird this scene was and cool at the same time.

Peach Orchard
In this dream the young boy is led to a field by a mysterious girl that cannot be seen by anyone else. Everyone in his family thinks he's crazy, but his curiosity makes him chase her. She leads him to an field were peaches use to be grown until his family cut the trees down. This is were he encounters mother nature and the tree's spirits. They hold the boy accountable for his families awful mistake. The spirits actually make him cry, but the young boy is smart, brave, courageous and explains to the spirits that he had no part in trimming. He actually loved the peach orchard and would never take apart in a act to hurt the tree's. The boy showed so much emotion, heart, and bravery that the tree's were beginning to feel bad they blamed him for his families mistakes. So they rewarded him with a bright and colorful rain dance that brought back the orchard once more. Except when he tries to walk through the orchard he is brought back to the realization that all the trees are chopped down except one. The last remaining tree that symbolized the young girl that lead him there. Some colors that were used a lot in this dream were: light purple, dark purple, orange, white, green, and yellow.

The Tunnel
This dream was my favorite. I really like the meaning behind it and everything that it symbolized. I like how he expressed death on the soldiers faces with a eerie blue pastel color. I really felt bad for the lieutenant when he had to explain to his soldier that he was not alive, but dead. The soldier felt so sure that he was living he really had no idea. And as soon as you thought the depressed lieutenant was done being haunted by his soldier he began to walk away and you heard a thunder of marching steps. You could feel this persons frustration and disbelief of what was about to happen next. It was bad enough for this man that he had to live with the feeling of making a poor command that killed his entire platoon, but having to explain this to his group of grieving soldiers was going to be difficult. After he explained to the soldiers his feeling he stressed the importance that they had to stop haunting him and must move on and rest in peace. They were still in disbelief until he finally gave his final order as a lieutenant and made them leave.