Like BUTTA.

Sorry for the hiatus. New place and all. Thanks to everyone for kickin' it in the meaningtime.

Akira Kurosawa's "Dreams" is one of the last films that the Grand Old Man ever did. He was a dedicated, visionary human dynamo...and yet managed to combine that with a spooky, careful, patient Zen magic that he brought to the director's chair. In a way.. I hesitate to stretch the metaphor, but Kurosawa's quiet dignity and grace can be communicated in two ways to the uninitiated.

Akira Kurosawa was to film what Maurice Sendak was to children's books: a quiet, startling genius with enough magic up his sleeve to make the director of your choice look like a poor, fumbling dilettante. Even more than his uncompromising morality, his dazzling use of color, or his appreciation of everything that is noble and beautiful in this world... his humility was what made him a celluloid god.

I remember the venerable old director receiving some sort of lifetime achievement award. His speech translated roughly:"Well, you know...now that I got this award..I feel like I may be starting to learn what it means to be a filmmaker." The man was eighty years old when he said that, and I wept like a kid, caught off guard in the middle of some yawn hundred-level film class. Since that day, I have been proud to recognize him as a hero of the trade.

ANYWAY (gasping for breath).."Dreams" is a series of, literally, several dreams written into fables. They are like moving pictures painted with a calligraphy brush on a kabuki screen. You follow the dramatic rollercoaster of each one, come out with this surprising mind-f*** of a revelation..and are immediately thrust into the next level.

We meet a little boy who angers the faeries ("foxes" in Japanese folklore), and must take it upon himself to set things right. We see an old soldier pursued by the ghosts of the battallion he sent out to die, through an echoing tunnel that more than likely won an Oscar for most scary set. We slog through a chilling Arctic piece worthy of the most bloodthirsty Jack London or Frank Norris lore. There is a huge political parable about the nuclear industry that will make you want to lose your lunch. We see a young lad thought to be irresponsible weeping his eyes out before the gods after his family cut down a peach orchard on their land. And we see a working Utopia just outside of Your Home Town, and a funeral party with a hundred-and-three year old fisherman leading the band.

There is much more. The level of magic dripping from this masterpiece almost cannot be expressed verbally, and must be seen to be believed.

But I just want to spoil one scene.

A neophyte artist walks through a certain painting of a certain bridge...and follows a striding ball of lightning in a sun hat, into a sorrowful field at the death of afternoon, where the ball of lightning sets up an easel. "Tu es Vincent Van Gogh, n'est-ce pas?" the Japanese neophyte calls out in a flawless French accent.

"Yeah, yeah." The figure turns..and (this tape was a copy with no label so I could be wrong here but..) It is mistah Martin Scorsese, in the most believable Van Gogh look I have ever seen. His face is red, his eyes are bright...and he has a kerchief tied under his jaw around both ears.

Scorsese/Van Gogh delivers, in English, a very moving speech. "A scene worthy of a painting is not a painting. The sun dictates my work. I cannot stop.."

And the Gaugin thing is totally destroyed when the neophyte asks him about his ear. "I was doing a self-portrait." Scorsese/Van Gogh snaps. "I couldn't get it right, so I cut it off."

The humor, quiet grace, humility and dignity of this movie make it a moving, magical experience. The sensibility is total Japanese poetry. Some Westerners of a more Hollywood bent may find it a bit hard to digest.

But open yourself to what the master has to teach..and you will come away with the wonder of a child in your eyes.