Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams

I just watched Akira Kurosawa’s dreams. This post is not my review to it. I’ll write a review for it soon. This post will mainly concentrate on the last story of this film. Akira after showing some devastatingly nightmarish stories like “The Tunnel”, “Mount Fuji in Red” & “The Weeping Demon”, immediately comes to, a so-called sweet dream “Village of The Watermills”. Here Kurosawa finds himself entering a peaceful, stream-laden village.

He meets an old wise man who says “We don’t have electricity. We’ve got candles & linseed oil.” To this, Kurosawa asks- “But nights are so dark?”. The old man answers- “Yes. They are supposed to be. Why should be night be as bright as a day? I wouldn’t like nights so bright you can’t see the stars.”

What a simple way of expressing the harmony we’re loosing with nature! The past stories display the irony of the world after a nuclear holocaust. This is a clear answer to these questions. A story where man has mutated to demons, feeding on weaker humans, crying for death is followed by a solution- harmony with nature. He openly blames scientists for “miracles”. The village elder has the innocence of a second childhood, polished with a whole lifetime of experience. The same boy is back who cried on the deforestation of peach orchids. But now he gives a solution- a world filled with greenery and flowers. Where even funeral is celebrated as triumph of mankind. Where man is a part of nature. Where the big river flows in the most melancholy way- just like the poetic imagery of the greatest master of cinema.