film reviews: Dreams (1990, Akira Kurosawa)

Synopsis: This anthology film, which draws on Japanese folklore and history, and themes of art and environmentalism, comprises eight segments, each based on a dream director Akira Kurosawa had in his life. In Sunshine Through the Rain, a young boy sneaks out from home during a sunshower to spy on a kitsune wedding, but is caught, enraging the foxes. In The Peach Orchard, a family is celebrating Hinamatsuri, or Doll Day. The young son follows a mysterious girl out of the house to the family's orchard, where he is confronted by the spirits of the peach trees cut down. In The Blizzard, four adventurers are caught in a blizzard while ascending a mountain, and fall asleep from exhaustion. One of the men wakes up to find a beautiful yuki-onna wrapping him in blankets of snow. In The Tunnel, an army commander returning home passes through a tunnel and is confronted by the ghosts of his dead regiment. In Crows, the only segment in English, an artist falls into the world of Van Gogh's paintings and ends up in 1880s France, where he meets Van Gogh himself. In Mount Fuji in Red, a nuclear power plant on the slopes of Mt. Fuji erupts, spelling toxic doom for everyone in the area. In The Weeping Oni, a young man in an apocalyptic wasteland meets a man with a horn growing out of his head in heavenly punishment for the sins he committed in his life. He shows the young man a gathering of demons, all with horns growing from their heads, howling in pain. In Village of the Watermills, the same young man arrives in a picturesque village whose inhabitants have eschewed modern conveniences for a more earthly, honest way of living, and witnesses a funeral parade celebrating the deceased's long life.

Review: I last saw this film many years ago so I wasn't sure how it would hold up, but on rewatching it I found it every bit as beautiful and moving as I did the first time. Kurosawa was a painter in his youth before he joined the film industry, and his color films made late in his life are bursting with color and imagery, every frame a master painting. Dreams, like Ran and Kagemusha, is visually stunning, and the film makes good use of makeup and costumes to achieve an ethereal, dreamlike effect in all of its segments. I can't recommend the film enough for lovers of Japanese culture and/or art films.

Additional comments: It's thought that the segment The Cherry Orchard was inspired by a sister of Kurosawa's who died young. In the segment Crows, Martin Scorsese plays Van Gogh. Village of the Watermills was filmed at a real location, Daio Wasabi Farm in Honshu, Japan. I love the way Mount Fuji in Red and The Weeping Oni are followed by Village of the Watermills, contrasting the apocalyptic worst-case scenarios for how modern society might end up with a vision of a better alternative. And I love the final shot of the film, of overflowing, bountiful nature overlaid with such melancholy, heartrending music. The music used is "In a Village" from Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov's "Caucasian Suite", although the arrangement removes the fast section and repeats the slow sections several times.

The film is on YouTube, and you can watch it here.

New Post has been published on https://shashin-mic.com/2023/01/03/mooring-of-the-arkma-hot-air-balloon/

Mooring of the Arkma hot air balloon

長野県安曇野市 Azumino City, Nagano Prefecture

大王わさび農場の駐車場に長野県のゆるキャラのアルクマの熱気球が係留されていました。 A hot air balloon of mascot character Arukuma in Nagano Prefecture was moored in the parking lot of Daio Wasabi Farm.

“Daio Wasabi Farm” at Azumino City

Photographed on November 6, 2016 at the Daio Wasabi Farm in Azumino,Nagano Prefecture,Japan.

2016.9/6 長野県安曇野にある大王わさび農場にて

大王わさび農場、大王神社、安曇野、日本 – Daio Shrine, Daio Wasabi Farm, Azumino, Japan by Tiphaine Rolland Via Flickr: 2018.04.22

day two

wow it’s been a wild day, we didn’t do a whole lot, mostly travelling by bus but the scenery was lovely, japan is so much cleaner and lusher than sydney.

so, first off we went to Matsumoto castle

it’s very pretty and old, but anyway we had to take off our shoes and carry em along and as you can see, the stairs were really bloody steep. the wood is very nice to the touch as well and it’s as old as the 17th century during the Edo period and was for the daiymoh (warlords), basically training etc. And at the top the daiymoh would retreat if the castle was under attack.

an example of the armour worn..

the view was so beautiful from the top, could see a lot of Suwa (i think that’s the name of the town lol), it’s kinda vintage looking, definitely not as busy as other cities.

okay, then it was time for the Daio Wasabi farms, and man oh man they go on for m i l e s. like, how is there so much??? it’s the biggest wasabi farm in the world and produces around 120 000 tons per day.

oh yeah, and i got wasabi ice-cream (hella good btw)

oof, there were some shrines inside the wasabi farm? some of them made me feel like i was transported into some horror film, because two were caves? and neither of us can read japanese so we didn’t enter just in case we weren’t supposed to

and i went to my first sushi train lmao, didn’t buy a whole lot but 10/10 recommend fermented egg, it was very eggcelent and god bless the staff, again, i hardly know any japanese so she was very patient with us.

i also weebed out on the second day bc there was a second hand store and so much fucking one piece stuff, had to restrain myself... and i now know the japanese equivalent of an antique store... those electronic stores with arcades... god i could live in one...

pssst... @dn-ky

Jour 6 : visite d'une ferme de wasabi Bonus : la glace au wasabi. #thelmabergot #japan #asia #azumino #travel #fujifilmxt10 #fujifilm #fujixt10 #27mm #fujinon #digitalphotography #photography #nature #farm #wasabi #daio #water #river (à Daio Wasabi Farm)

Daio Wasabi Farm, Azumino, Nagano Sep.2020

Daio-Wasabi-Nojo Farm at Azumino City, Nagano prefecture.

夢 / Dreams Akira Kurosawa, Ishirô Honda. 1990

Watermills Daio Wasabi Farm, 〒399-8303 Nagano Prefecture, Azumino, Hotaka, 3640 Japan See in map

See in imdb

Buried #viewfromthetrain #japan #iphone #travel #winter #journey #snow #trees (at Daio Wasabi Farm) https://www.instagram.com/p/B73Z8lYBdhY/?igshid=1m4gfqhqhkc18

An oriental dream (117)

A stream at Daio Wasabi Farm. It was the place where renowned director Akira Kurosawa filmed part of his movie “Dreams”.

Azumino, Japan (June 2019) / Nikon D810

Around Matsumoto - Wasabi farming, noodle making and some dotty art

13th July 2019

A long weekend in July is the optimum time to take advantage of the cool mountains of Kamikochi. This year though the rainy season was a long one. Many weekends from June throughout July and into August were wet and miserable. With the forecast looking unencouraging we were determined to try so headed to Matsumoto as the starting point for our mountain adventure. 

The forecast for the mountains though was determinedly disappointing with the most concerning point being the thunder and lightning. A mountain is not the best place to be during a storm especially when the Japanese have chains and metal ladders on the more difficult climbing routes. Regretfully we needed to come up with a plan B - at least for the time being. 

As the morning was a sunny start we decided to head to Daio Wasabi farm in the rural Azumino City a half an hour train ride from Matsumoto.  The farm had a wide range of wasabi products available not just your ordinary processed wasabi but the real stuff. They use the ice cold water running off the Nagano mountains and irrigate it into a network of small streams where the wasabi is grown.

After sampling some of the wasabi treats we headed back to explore some of the historical streets of Matsumoto following a vague food and drink tour .

The next day, still thwarted by the weather, we remained in Matsumoto and tried our hand at Soba making. 

We were instructed by our very own soba master. We were shown the process and used the authentic soba making tools. I definitely got flashbacks to woodwork DT but managed to produce something soba like. They were then taken away and cooked for us. They were probably a little chunky compared to real soba noodles but tasted fine, its a bit hard to mess up when its essentially flour and water. The left over soba we had made, they deep fried and gave to us as a tasty crunchy snack.

The other sight on our rainy day list was The Matsumoto City Museum of Art. The artist Kusama Yayoi was brought up in Matsumoto so the city has an extensive collection of her work. Sculptural Flowers welcome visitors. The collection follows the artists’ development from childhood pieces through to an apartment covered in dots and the infinite reflections room. The work comes from a dark place conceptually but definitely brightens an otherwise gloomy day.

The Wasabi You Eat Probably Isn’t Wasabi Most of the time, the wasabi you get in a restaurant or buy in a store is fake. It’s actually horseradish that’s colored green. Why? Well, wasabi is a notoriously difficult plant to grow. In fact, it’s considered the most difficult plant in the world to farm commercially. Yet for the past century, the Daio Wasabi Farm in Hokata, Japan, has been growing it successfully with natural spring water from nearby mountains. A great big story made in collaboration with ANA (https://www.ana.co.jp/wws/uk/e/wws_common/promotions/bydesign/).

大王わさび農場、安曇野、日本 – Daio Wasabi Farm, Azumino, Japan by Tiphaine Rolland Via Flickr: 2018.04.22

I'm at Daio Wasabi Farm (大王わさび農場)!

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