The Criterion Channel Presents: Dreams (1990)

“I had another dream.”

Akira Kurosawa had a lot on his mind in his later years, and his 1990 movie Dreams was his way of expressing it all in as close to tangible terms as he could. Coming five years after his last great epic Ran, it was the perfect movie to end his extraordinary career on (though he made two more before his death in 1998); being not only a supremely underrated movie but possibly Kurosawa’s most personal –it was his first since 1945 that he wrote independently. 

The film is comprised of a series of eight largely unrelated vignettes (though the last four seem to be linked by their themes and the presence of a wanderer protagonist played by Akira Terao -who looks suspiciously like Kurosawa himself). Each is supposedly based on recurring dreams Kurosawa has had throughout his life, and they’re utterly fascinating -from the dreamlike “Sunshine Through the Rain”, about a boy paying the price for his curiosity, to “The Tunnel”, an unnerving tale about a soldier haunted by the men he led into battle; “Crows”, which follows a man traversing the painted landscapes of Vincent van Gogh (played by Martin Scorsese of all people), to “The Weeping Demon”, set against the devastation of a world sapped of life. Through these parables, Kurosawa explores his childhood and lifelong fears and anxieties, his relationship to philosophy, mythology, life, death, art, and spirituality, and amid all the pessimism, the terror of environmental catastrophe, war, and nuclear apocalypse, he even dares to hope. It’s a viscerally rich, beautifully poetic statement on the world, the human spirit, our passions, our demons, and our collective impulse for destruction as Kurosawa sees it. 

And there’s so much incredible imagination on display to boot. This film allowed Kurosawa to immerse himself more fully in the fantastical, both drawing on Japanese mythology and conjuring his own magical dreamscapes to sensational results. It’s really a shame that he couldn’t use colour until late in his career, because he can work wonders with it. His painters’ touch is on display in the vivid art direction, costume design, and scene composition. It’s easily one of his most visually exciting and captivating movies. Of course, credit where it’s due, part of that is owing to his American benefactors –this was during the period when Kurosawa was very unpopular in Japan. His fans Steven Spielberg and George Lucas helped realize Dreams though, with Spielberg convincing Warner Brothers to distribute the film and Lucas providing the resources of ILM for its special effects. However even with those names attached, Dreams was merely a lukewarm hit, and is still overlooked next to his grander late-stage triumphs like Kagemusha and Ran. Perhaps it was because Dreams is quite unlike any other Kurosawa film, which is saying a lot given how distinct each of his films is. But I think it’s one of his greatest achievements, and I warrant no other movie is a greater ode to the man and the filmmaker that Kurosawa was.

Criterion Recommendation: Trainspotting (1996)

With a new Danny Boyle film out now, it’s a good time to recommend his very best movie for entry into the Criterion Collection. Almost certainly the most important Scottish film ever made, Trainspotting is about the lives of a gang of young heroin junkies in Edinburgh, left behind by a system that doesn’t care for the urban poor. It’s among the most harrowing portraits of addiction in cinema, with its hectic editing and cinematography, stylized and experimental direction, innovative narrative devices, and brilliant visual effects that range from evocative to terrifying, pulling you into the dingy underworld of drug abuse like no other. Yet it’s a remarkably lively movie, owing to the performances by an excellent cast whose careers were made by this film and a fun, contagious soundtrack. Trainspotting was said to have captured the youth of the 90’s and its effects have not since waned.

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