Kurosawa can do anything.

By the time Akira Kurosawa made Dreams at the age of 79, he had revolutionized the samurai film and directed some of the best movies ever made during a career that spanned several decades. I was introduced to Kurosawa through his violent epics, films like Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress, but have found myself pleasantly surprised by his non-samurai movies. The emphasis on character, emotion, and image that he brought to movies like Seven Samurai is perfect for a modern drama, like Ikiru (my favorite Kurosawa film) or an art film, like Dreams.
Dreams is a movie comprised of several different stories based on actual dreams Kurosawa had throughout his very long life. These stories often lack a conclusion or have a very vague one, and move from one subject to the next with no logical connection- just like dreams. The movie is also very slow paced, and though it may seem three hours long, is barely two, just as a real dream is over in a few seconds that can seem like hours to the dreamer. Kurosawa has captured the spirit of real dreams on his camera, and filled it with the bright color and characters we’ve all met in our best dreams.
The dreams in this movie are mostly nightmares (as are most interesting dreams) and progress from the fears of a young boy- angry foxes that live at the end of the rainbow- to the fears of an old man- nuclear war. The main character is always on a journey, whether it be chasing a girl who may or may not actually be a peach tree, or wandering around a post-apocalyptic world populated by demons. These journeys, no doubt, are meant to represent a man’s journey through life, from the trials and tribulations to the simple joys (Martin Scorsese has an interesting cameo: he plays Vincent Van Gough in a scene where our journeyer takes a tour through several of Van Gough’s paintings).
The stories, just as life seems to, grow increasingly dark and complex as they progress, with the second-to last story, “The Weeping Demon,” serving as the climax. It is set after the world has been decimated by nuclear bombs, mutating the few survivors into beings that resemble demons. The only remaining evidence of the world- and of the journeyer’s childhood- which once was is giant dandelions and mutated roses. These plants are the only sources of true color in a world of gray and brown; colors which recall those of the childhood sequences early in the movie. The resolution, which comes in the next and final story, is again full of these colors and offers a peaceful meditation on death, in contrast to the fears of a horrible death expressed in earlier stories like “The Weeping Demon.” Kurosawa has crafted the film in a way that human emotions are present not in the characters of the dreams, but in the dreams and their sequence.
Dreams does not have the broad appeal of the other Kurosawa’s movies. It is not as entertaining as Yojimbo, or as emotionally fulfilling as Ikiru, but it is a bold personal statement by the director, who I believe was attempting to exorcise a weeping demon or two of his own.