Dreams

How this film uses it

The 8 segments don't add up to one plot. They jump from childhood to war to the end of the world the way dreams do, by feeling. What links them is the same stand-in hero and the same worries about nature and death.

Where to see it

Sunshine Through the Rain. A boy watches a slow fox wedding in the forest, and his mother hands him a knife and sends him off to beg the foxes for forgiveness.

How this film uses it

The man in each dream is Kurosawa's stand-in. The crew built a copy of his childhood home for the first segment, with Kurosawa written on the gate. He tells you these are his dreams and still keeps you at a careful distance.

Where to see it

The Peach Orchard. A boy mourns his family's cut-down peach trees, and their spirits dance to give him one last look at the orchard in bloom.

How this film uses it

In The Tunnel, a commander faces the ghosts of the soldiers he lost, and Kurosawa holds the scene in one very long shot. With no cuts, the commander has nowhere to hide. You stand in front of the dead with him.

Where to see it

The Tunnel. The commander's dead platoon marches out of the tunnel and salutes him, and he tells them they died because of his orders.

How this film uses it

An art student steps into Van Gogh's paintings, and Martin Scorsese plays Van Gogh. The crew even replanted a barley field with wheat to match Wheatfield with Crows. You walk through the art as if it were a real landscape.

Where to see it

Crows. The student chases Van Gogh through his paintings and ends up in the wheat field as a flock of crows takes off.

How this film uses it

In Mount Fuji in Red, the poison clouds from a burst nuclear plant are dyed to show which deadly element they carry. A man explains red, yellow and purple to the survivors, and then the colors roll in. The bright colors make the danger visible and almost pretty.

Where to see it

Mount Fuji in Red. A family stands at the edge of the sea while red, yellow and purple clouds sweep toward them.