Day 4 10/7/09

In class we watched the movie Dreams by Akira Kurosawa. It showed many short clips of different ''Dreams'' and each had it's own unique theme to it. The names of each clip are as follows: The Sunshine Wedding, The Peach Orchard, The Blizzard, The Tunnel, Crows, Mount Fuji in Red, Weeping Demon, and Village in Watermills. The meaning behind the first dream was cloudy for me. I think it was trying to say that certain customs must be followed and if you break the custom, you have to take responsibility for it. The Peach Orchard's message, in the way I interpreted it, says how people destroy things without regarding the importance of them, affecting the people around them. The Blizzard showed four men traversing through a snowstorm heading to their camp. As it seemed hopeless to reach their intended location, one by one they gave up and awaited their death. The last man tried encouraging them to keep going, to no avail. As he also gave into hopelessness, a snow lady tried to push him to give up even more. However his strong spirit brought him back to his senses. The message I saw was no matter how hopeless something seems, if you keep pushing on and not giving in, the goal may just be right in front of you.

The Tunnel gave a message how war, no matter what reason it's used for, hurts everyone. Not just the soldiers that die on the battlefront, but includes the commander, families, even fellow soldiers. Crows showed an artist traversing through Van Gogh's paintings. Although I didn't understand the message it portrayed, I liked how the fact when the artist was walking through the painting settings that some objects were in front of him as he passed by. That detail makes the illusion that he really is in the painting and not just infront of it. Mount Fuji in Red showed explosions around Mount Fuji and chaos was among the people nearby. It looked like an extremely powerful eruption but later we find out it was caused by nuclear plants around it. It depicted how man created artifical power and went too far. The loss of control had a castastrophic effect causing the residents of the area to have a prolonged, slow death of radiation poisoning.

The Weeping Demon showed how nuclear radiation caused mutations of the environment, some examples being the gigantic flowers and mutated humans. The humans were "demons" that fed on each other. It was a message to take care of our world, to start preventing environmental polution because it will destroy life. Village of the Watermills showed how people decided to help the environment by using nature to ''power'' their lives. It also showed how by following the ways of nature, it prolonged lifespans. Death was treated as a good end rather than a bad end.
Overall I thought this film had a lot of messages to spread to its viewers, even though some of the messages were a bit murky for my understanding.

catastrophic
extremely
incessant -continuing without interruption; ceaseless; unending: an incessant noise.