“YUME (Dream)” was the third Japanese film to be shown in the foreign film series at Watkins Auditorium last Friday. This film was directed by Akira Kurosawa and was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1991.

This film is a collection of eight different dreams which Kurosawa actually dreamed. Every dreams start from “Once I had a dream…”
His first dream is “Sunshine in the Rain.” The main character starts out on his journey as a young child. He goes outside from his house, and it suddenly starts raining. His mother warms him that during a rainstorm on a sunny day, foxes are having their weddings.

Foxes dislike someone to see their wedding, so she warns him not to watch it. The boy is curious so he ventures out into the woods where he comes across masked humanoid foxes.

With traditional Japanese ceremonial music playing, the foxes occasionally stop to survey the area carefully. The boy hides behind a tree and stares.

Finally, the boy is found. He runs home to find his angry mother. She tells him the mad foxes demand that he commit seppuku, and she hands him a sheathed dagger. His mother does not allow him to come in, and warns him that he must beg the foxes for forgiveness. She told him that the foxes’ house is under the rainbow, so he journeys to a lovely field of flowers under a beautiful rainbow.

In “The Beach Orchard,” he becomes a little older. During the Dolls Festival which represents the peach trees blossoming, the boy brings rice dumplings to his sister and her friends. He counts his sister’s friends and brings the exact number of desserts but somehow one dessert is left. He again notices a strange girl but she runs through the house. He keeps following the strange girl.

The spirits of the fallen trees appear in front of him in a form of dolls displayed in his house. The sprits severely scold the boy for the destruction of the peach trees. However, he is not responsible. In fact, he is the one who protested cutting down the orchard. He had known the beauty and harmony of nature where others did not. The spirits understood his warm heart for the nature, so they show him the sight of wonderful peach trees and the windswept blossoms again.

In “The Blizzard”, the grown boy and a group of men aim for their camp in the snow mountain. They struggle to survive a harsh storm as they walk up a treacherous mountain terrain.

Even though they only travel for a few hours, the daylight begins to dim, and the storm becomes heavier and heavier. Everyone except the boy begins to give up. They fall into a potentially fatal slumber, and the boy also succumbs as the snow fairy personifying the storm wraps him in sheet after sheet of warm blankets. But I struggles to survive, and he fights off death.

Finally, he manages to fend off the snow fairy, and the storm stops and the sun starts rising. The storm subsides, and he finds himself at the camp. He wakes his team up and their faces are full of joy. In “The Tunnel”, the boy continues his journey to the home of Private Noguchi’s family to break the news of his tragic death at war.

When the boy reaches the end of the dark tunnel guarded by a dog, he suddenly hears footsteps behind him. Private Noguchi appears and greets his commanding officer.

Noguchi does not know that he is dead. Heartbroken, the boy tells him that he is dead, but Noguchi can’t accept his death and goes back into the dark tunnel.

Shortly after, the boy hears many footsteps. The footsteps belong to a group of the soldiers that the boy commanded. The group of soldiers were all dead. The boy is the only one who survived the war.

While he could blame the war, it was his own reckless ambition in the battle that led to their demise. When they finally understand their death, the boy orders them to turn and march back into the tunnel.
In “Crows”, the boy is looking at a painting of Vincent Van Gogh in the museum. While he is looking at the paintings, he enters inside one of the pictures.

He arrives in Europe and inquires asks about Van Gogh. He arrives at Van Gogh’s home, where he is deeply admiring a beautiful landscape. His deepness shows as he reveals to the boy the bond between nature and art.

The boy follows Van Gogh and he finally comes to a field where crows begin to scatter where the famous painter walks. The boy then returns to reality from his imagination journey.

In “Mount Fuji in Red,” The boy and a mass of people escape from the explosion of Mt. Fuji. The explosion made atomic power plants explode.

The only thing the people can hope for is to run for safety near the ocean. The boy arrives at the end of the nation, and realizes he cannot see anyone because they fell into the sea below.

A former nuclear plant worker grimly explains the horrors of the visible radioactive fallout, and the preference of a quicker demise to the terrors that lie in the fatal radiation. In no time, he too leaps to his demise, as the boy attempts to wave away the fallout from a handful of survivors.

In “The Weeping Demon,” the boy finds himself in a desert. Coming face to face with a single-horned man, he soon learns of the perils of war.

Huge dandelions grow on the rocky terrain, and the “demon” reveals how the horrible nuclear warhead altered the physical anatomy of the humans responsible. They had become horned demons doomed to a suffering immortality.

Then demons with several horns are revealed to the boy, writhing as nightfall burns searing misery in their horns. The single-honed demon begins to feel the pain, too. He warns the boy to escape because he will also fall victim.

The final episode is “Village of the Watermills,” in the boy crosses an old bridge where a group of children oddly leave flowers on a nearby stone.

The boy journeys to the village and discovers an elderly man who reveals that the village he calls his home is appropriately called “The Village.”

The elderly man, a centenarian, reveals that a simple life free of technological convenience is satisfying, but they never brought goods. They live based on the nature and many people live long, healthy lives, working hard and enjoying the fruits of their labor. The boy asked the man about the children’s tradition near the bridge, and he tells him that it honors the death of a sick stranger who arrived in that village. The villagers promptly buried him and marked that stone with flowers. It has become a custom for the villagers. Even though they do not know the reason, they leave flowers on the stone. While he is talking with the man, he hears what sounds like a festival. Actually, it was not a festival but a funeral.

In this village, people rarely die young, the funerals are always happy, because passing is always welcome. This funeral is for a woman in her late nineties who was an elderly man’s first love. He brings his ring and joins the march of the funeral. The cheers and instruments of the procession ring through the forest as the boy leaves a flower on the stone near the bridge, leaving the paradise behind.

I personally liked the beautiful pictures of the film. There are no computerized pictures. You can enjoy the beautiful Japanese traditional pictures. Even if you do not understand each story, I am sure that you can enjoy the pictures, especially the pictures in “Village of the Watermills.” It made me feel as if I am actually in the village. I could feel the fresh wind and the murmur of a stream. This “Dream” does not have much conversation so it makes it difficult to understand the story. However, in some of the episodes I could see the means of the dreams, such as “The Tunnel,” “Mount Fuji in Red” and “Village of the Watermill.”

I would say that, even if you do not understand the meaning of the each episode, just enjoy the pictures of the Kurosawa’s world.