This blogger cannot help but wonder how Kurosawa would have responded to issues of climate change?. Akira Kurosawa was an amazing movie Director and this blogger had the fortune to watch almost all his movies and do have a collection of his CDs. Kurosawa was very much affected by the threat of Nuclear Bombs (signature movie being Rhapsody in August).
The other day I wa
s watching “Dreams” again, it is a must watch. Brilliant in its execution and so much compassion, the colors, the music…each frame exudes with love and care. Again Kurosawa attempts to see a world after nuclear holocaust, a hopeless world where humans prefers suicide, wherein humans become demons and cannibalism to survive. In barren sooty land, oversized mutated flowers (a kind of diabolical beauty) humans writhe in pain. It is a compelling watch. There is also a dream of a boy who cries when trees are cut…done as it were poetry. The best was about Von Gogh, the painting comes alive, replies Gogh about his missing ear ‘I was painting my self portrait couldn’t get the ear right so cut it off’. Only Kurosawa could have conceived these beautiful lines, only he could rightfully understand Von Gogh.
There is another touching ‘dream’ of dead soldier emerging from tunnel and insisting that he is not dead, ‘even my parents think I am alive’ ‘I remember eating cake my mother made’ to his platoon commander. Followed by a battalion of dead soldiers reporting to duty, victorious they think. Whether it is happening in the officer's mind is matter of conjecturing but he insists the soldiers to not to come back, ‘you all were annihilated’. He says exasperated ‘returning to the world like this proves nothing’. I have watched this piece many times; I am struck by the beauty of it, the sadness of it. It has moved me every time.
This blogger has watched many great movies over the time (I also love popular movies, though restricted my outings in last few years. I just cannot miss a Rajnikant or Govinda movie!) and almost all masters Japanese, English, French, Iranian, Spanish, Indian…you name it. Indeed at one point used to travel across the country to catch up with film festivals (need to add here that there are lots of pretentious people amazingly mediocre who sneak in, occupational hazard of an audience I guess!!). But if you ask me which is my favorite movie it has to be “Dreams”, my favorite director is also Akira Kurosawa. As an audience I terribly miss him. I am sure Kurosawa would have compassionately addressed predicaments of human society- like climate change, he would have created something brilliant by now.
