Dream merchants
It was an interpretation of dreams at the screening of Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece
MEANINGFUL The screening
It was a new beginning as Konangal Film Society brought the Japanese film Dreams (made up of a series of eight distinct dreams) by Akira Kurosawa for cinema lovers in the city.
Post-screening, they discussed, analysed and interpreted the film, which was a journey into the unconscious.
The essence of Japan
"Akira captured Japanese culture, its values and issues that affected people's everyday life, especially youngsters (30,000 of them attended his funeral). He wanted people to watch his movies with a detached gaze but also wanted his films to leave behind an in-depth impact," says Pon. Chandran of Konangal, which recently screened the film at the Swarnabhoomi Art Gallery. Breath-taking cinematography and soulful music in his films add to the impact. "For this 88-year-old filmmaker who died in 1998, his films defined his life," he adds.
Natural
Innocence, fear, uncertainty, pain and joy — every dream had its share of emotions. The journey begins in innocence.
The Peach Orchard
In Sunshine through the rain, a little boy goes into the forest and witnesses the forbidden sight of a wedding procession of foxes.
The film goes back in time when laws of nature prevailed.
The movie ends with the boy going in search of a fox beneath the rainbow to apologise for prying. In The peach orchard, the same boy, a little grown up now, encounters the spirits of the peach trees.
In The Blizzard, a team of mountaineers is elated when saved by spiritual intervention.
A colourful world
The angel they see in their dreams descends to help them out from a blizzard. The thought process of an art student as he explores the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh transports him into a colourful and an enjoyable world in Crows. In The Tunnel, an army man encounters the ghosts of the entire third platoon that has been killed in action.
He enjoins the spirits to rest in peace rather than get back to the painful war-torn world. Mount Fuji in Red shows the destruction caused by atomic reactors and the helplessness of the common man. Giant dandelions, unusual roses and human beings with horns in The Weeping Demon captured the portrait of a post-nuclear world. The last dream Village of the watermills is about harmony with Nature, where people live longer and even death is a celebration.
Life's journey
Akira's dreams, a collective dream of the 20th century man, begins with innocence, progresses to an intellectual view of the society and culminates in what was perhaps Akira's idea of a perfect state of existence.
Read more about Konangal at http://konangalfilmsociety.blogspot.com/
Courtesy : The Hindu
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