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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is

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Speaker 1: Rob Lamb. In today's episode, we're going to be airing

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Speaker 1: an episode that originally came out six twenty five. It

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Speaker 1: is Akira kurosaw Was Dreams. This is a gorgeous film

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Speaker 1: and very surreal and unfittingly dreamlike. So this one is

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Speaker 1: a real pleasure to discuss. I hope you enjoy it

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Speaker 1: as well.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema,

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Speaker 3: we're going to be talking about Akira kurosaw was nineteen

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Speaker 3: ninety anthology film Dreams, which is exactly what it says

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Speaker 3: on the box. This is a collection of a eight

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Speaker 3: short vignettes that take the form of dreams and nightmares.

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Speaker 3: I had never seen this film before this week when

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Speaker 3: I picked it out for the show, and I love

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Speaker 3: this movie. But if you watch it, you should know

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Speaker 3: what you're getting into, especially if you've liked other Corosawa movies.

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Speaker 3: This is not seven Samurai. That's like, you know, a gripping,

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Speaker 3: exciting story. This is a movie that really asks for

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Speaker 3: your patients as an audience member. The pace is moody

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Speaker 3: and slow. There is no central or overarching plot. There

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Speaker 3: are some themes and character types that recur, but each

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Speaker 3: of the eight short stories is essentially self contained, and

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Speaker 3: they partake of extremely varied tones, settings, and pacings. Some

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Speaker 3: of the stories are like a weird kind of improvisational

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Speaker 3: fairy tale. Some are frightening, baffling encounters with mon stress entities,

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Speaker 3: some are kind of idyllic meetings between a curious protagonist

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Speaker 3: and a thoughtful character, and some are apocalyptic visions of

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Speaker 3: a doomed earth. You really get all different kinds of

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Speaker 3: dreams in this movie.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, this is a great film. I'm so glad

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Speaker 1: you picked this one, Joe. This is not a Krosawa

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Speaker 1: film I'd ever seen either. Generally, I'd seen just a

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Speaker 1: handful of his samurai epics, Throne of Blood being my

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Speaker 1: favorite from years back, but of my favorites too. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but I had not. I had not rewatched or watched

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Speaker 1: any Krosawa recently, so it was great to dive into

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Speaker 1: this one. And yeah, I absolutely agree. This movie is

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Speaker 1: true to the title. Just steeped in the texture of

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Speaker 1: dream in a way that is I think, far far

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Speaker 1: more sublime than the mere trappings of the cinematic dream sequence.

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Speaker 1: Currosawa with signature excellence here generates a strong ambience of dreams, often,

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Speaker 1: or at least it seems to me, with a one

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Speaker 1: two punch of first intriguing monotony and then this emotional upwelling.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I think I know what you mean. That

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Speaker 3: many of these stories have a have a kind of

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Speaker 3: earlier middle section where something is kind of either slow

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Speaker 3: and contemplative or frustratingly repetitive and monotonous, and then suddenly

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Speaker 3: there is a breakthrough. There's some kind of catharsis where

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Speaker 3: something of powerful emotional significance happens.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And I found this very very interesting and

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Speaker 1: very true to my experiences with dreams and my recollection

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Speaker 1: of my own dreams. Intriguing monotony here is not a

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Speaker 1: dig at the picture or a Kursawa. I think it's

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Speaker 1: it's ultimately kind of a revelation that we see dreams

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Speaker 1: presented in this manner where, like you know, generally our

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Speaker 1: dream the dreams that we have night to night are

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Speaker 1: not worthy of cinematic adaptation, but I think people may

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Speaker 1: recognize this basic form. Like I have this dream and

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Speaker 1: I was like, I was trying to put together some

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Speaker 1: Ikia furniture and I couldn't put it together. And this

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Speaker 1: just kept happening for what seemed like hours, and then

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Speaker 1: my dad showed up and I had a conversation with

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Speaker 1: my long deceased father, that sort of thing, you know,

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Speaker 1: with so like a one two punch of monotony, lost

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Speaker 1: in some sort of an environment or a situation that

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Speaker 1: may not have anything that's really driving it forward, and

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Speaker 1: then there's some sort of emotional upwelling. It's almost like

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Speaker 1: the dream is this garden of the subconscious, populated seemingly

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Speaker 1: by weeds of various thoughts, memories, and observations, and then

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Speaker 1: some powerful emotional resonance emerges through and into this dream garden,

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Speaker 1: taking on its trapping.

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Speaker 3: I think that's a great way to put it. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: a lot of these stories are like that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that emotional upwelling. It might be love, it

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Speaker 1: might be fear, it might be regret. So in any way,

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Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say is yes to all of that.

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Speaker 1: Dreams is not a fast paced film. If you're more

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Speaker 1: famili with Krosawa's action and drama films. This is a

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Speaker 1: different beast. I also want to highlight that I watched

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Speaker 1: this film with a fever. I'm I just returned from

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Speaker 1: some extensive travel and something came back with me, and

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Speaker 1: this is a This is a good fever film. I

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Speaker 1: have to say. If you find yourself sort of drifting

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Speaker 1: in and out, this is the perfect film to do it.

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Speaker 1: There was a time or two where I caught myself

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Speaker 1: falling asleep a little bit, which sometimes happens when you

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Speaker 1: become horizontal and you watch films. But it's extra interesting

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Speaker 1: with this picture because, like Coursawa has already put you

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Speaker 1: into the monotony of the dream sequence, you know, into

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Speaker 1: the dream world, and so you find yourself slipping into

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Speaker 1: that dream world for real.

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Speaker 3: I feel like all of them would be good to

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Speaker 3: fall asleep and then wake up again, to accept Mount

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Speaker 3: Fuji and Red. That one's got to be real tough

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Speaker 3: to kind of suddenly realize what's going on.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that one that we'll get to. That one. That

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Speaker 1: one was the rougher one for me. But anyway, this

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Speaker 1: is our first Karrosawa film on weird House cinema. We've

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Speaker 1: of course mentioned him numerous times in passing on the

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Speaker 1: show because, of course, a it's impossible to discuss Japanese

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Speaker 1: cinema without acknowledging a Kira Crosawa, and you know, it's

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Speaker 1: certainly the case too with something like a Godzilla film,

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Speaker 1: even because those several of the Godzilla films we've talked

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Speaker 1: about in the show were filmed by Ishil Honda, Carasawa's

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Speaker 1: friend and a frequent collaborator under tow Host Studios. And

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Speaker 1: then on top of all of this, it's ultimately impossible

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Speaker 1: to discuss cinema at all without eventually referencing Krosawa, as

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Speaker 1: he's one of the most famed and influential filmmakers of

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Speaker 1: all time.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say the majority of his films, at

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Speaker 3: least the ones I've seen, are not really in the

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Speaker 3: weird house cinema space, and that I absolutely love them.

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Speaker 3: But they're a little bit more straightforwardly realism bound. You know,

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Speaker 3: they're often realistic period stories. They don't really get into

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Speaker 3: the kind of weird genres we talk about, though. There

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Speaker 3: are some very weird things in Throne of Blood, even

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Speaker 3: though it is basically a Macbeth adaptation.

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Speaker 1: Throwing Blood is the one that previously I considered that

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Speaker 1: to be the the Krosawa film we might get to.

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Speaker 1: But this, I think was isn't even better fit for this?

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, because obviously this is dreams, and what's weirder

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Speaker 3: than dreams? I mean, dreams are dreams are the classic

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Speaker 3: weird house cinema. Before there was cinema, there was the

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Speaker 3: weird house cinema of the inner space.

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Speaker 1: That's true. Oh, by the way, this is a Cura

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Speaker 1: Crosaw is Dreams, or sometimes just dreams. It's often referenced

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Speaker 1: to by that title. Not to be confused with nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety five's Memories, an excellent animated anthology from Kutserhiro Otamo.

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Speaker 1: These are two very different films, but I have caught

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Speaker 1: myself on multiple occasions confusing the two titles in my mind.

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Speaker 1: So I suspect I'm not alone here. Memories is anime

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Speaker 1: and it's excellent. It's also an anthology. This is live

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Speaker 1: action and it's Carosawa, and it's also an anthology.

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Speaker 3: So I thought it might be good at the top

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Speaker 3: here to go ahead and do a brief rundown of

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Speaker 3: the eight different dreams in this movie, with like a

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Speaker 3: one or two sentence summary of each, just so that

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Speaker 3: we can refer back to them more easily as we

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Speaker 3: go along, talking about the themes and the connections and stuff,

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Speaker 3: and then we can talk about the plot in more

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Speaker 3: detail later on. But okay, so the eight segments are.

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Speaker 3: The first one is called Sunshine through the Rain. In

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Speaker 3: this one, a young boy wanders into the forest during

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Speaker 3: a sun shower when it's raining, but the sun is

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Speaker 3: shining against his mother's advice, and he witnesses the marriage

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Speaker 3: ceremony of the fox spirits, which is something he should

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Speaker 3: not have seen. This first segment may be my favorite

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Speaker 3: segment of all. I'm really excited to talk more about it.

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Speaker 3: The second segment is the Peach Orchard. This takes place

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Speaker 3: on a festival day in Japan called the Day of

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Speaker 3: Hino Matsuri or the Doll's Day festival, sometimes the Girl's

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Speaker 3: Day Festival. On this day, a boy follows a spectral

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Speaker 3: girl dressed in pink and white out to the terraces

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Speaker 3: where a peach orchard used to grow, and the spirits

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Speaker 3: of the now destroyed peach trees appear in the form

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Speaker 3: of dolls and perform, They talk to him, and they

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Speaker 3: perform a traditional dance. The third segment is called the Blizzard.

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Speaker 3: In this segment, a group of four mountain climbers are

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Speaker 3: struggling to reach camp in the middle of a terrible snowstorm,

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Speaker 3: and the climbers they're overwhelmed by the snow. They begin

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Speaker 3: to succumb to the cold, and their leader has a

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Speaker 3: blood curdling vision of a snow witch. In the fourth segment,

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Speaker 3: the Tunnel, while walking home after the end of a war,

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Speaker 3: presumably World War II, a Japanese military officer has to

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Speaker 3: pass through a tunnel on a mountain road. There he

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Speaker 3: meets first an angry dog strapped with explosives, and then

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Speaker 3: a soldier, and then a company of soldiers who died

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Speaker 3: under his command. The fifth segment Crows. This one is

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Speaker 3: more lighthearted. A painter is looking at the works of

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Speaker 3: How are we going to say his name? In this episode,

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Speaker 3: I always Vincent the painter Vincent van Goch, Vincent van

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Speaker 3: Go I'm just gonna say van Go. I know that's

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Speaker 3: not the correct original pronunciation. I'm sorry, That's how I

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Speaker 3: always learned it when.

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Speaker 1: I was growing up.

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Speaker 3: The paintings of Vincent Van Goo. He looks at these paintings,

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Speaker 3: he admires them, and then he sort of appears within

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Speaker 3: the artistic world of Van Go and then finally meets

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Speaker 3: the artist and learns things about his vision and kind

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Speaker 3: of interfaces with his view of art and the world.

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Speaker 3: After that, we get a segment called Mount Fuji and Red.

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Speaker 3: This is where the terror really ramps up. Our Corrosawa

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Speaker 3: surrogate here In many of these segments are probably in

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Speaker 3: all of them, you can view the protagonist as some

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Speaker 3: form of Kurusawa himself, either as a child or sort

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Speaker 3: of alternate life version of himself. In this segment, our

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Speaker 3: surrogate finds himself in a massive crowd of people fleeing

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Speaker 3: a disaster. We see Mount Fuji in the distance appear

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Speaker 3: glowing hot, framed by explosions, and then a man in

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Speaker 3: a suit appears to explain these explosions are caused by

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Speaker 3: a meltdown at a nuclear power plant, and the people

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Speaker 3: are being killed by clouds full of radioactive isotopes and

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Speaker 3: it just gets worse from there. Next we have the

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Speaker 3: Weeping Demon. In this segment, a man is climbing across

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Speaker 3: a craggy, desolate landscape of rocks and gravel, and he

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Speaker 3: encounters a monstrous man with a horn on his head.

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Speaker 3: We learn that the man has been mutated by nuclear fallout,

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Speaker 3: and against a backdrop of giant dandelions, he explains the

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Speaker 3: cannibalistic hell of the radioactive desert, and then in the

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Speaker 3: final segment, we get a rapid sort of down shift

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Speaker 3: back into out of all the horrors, into a more

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Speaker 3: contemplative mode. This is a segment called the Village of

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Speaker 3: the Watermills, where our Kurosawa protagonist kind of ambles into

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Speaker 3: an idyllic rural village along a river and he meets

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Speaker 3: a wise old man and observes the local customs.

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Speaker 1: I mean, no surprise, but Chrisawa really nailed it here

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Speaker 1: with the order. It's just it's the perfect There's no

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Speaker 1: other order for these sequences that would make sense.

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Speaker 3: I think you may have more to say about this

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Speaker 3: because you were watching the documentary. But I have read

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Speaker 3: that there were originally intended to be more dreams that

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Speaker 3: appeared in the film, but the segments got paired back

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Speaker 3: as production went along. In some cases, I think at

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Speaker 3: the writing stage, and in some cases after some things

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Speaker 3: were shot. But you know, whatever, the original intentions. It

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Speaker 3: does feel complete and cohesive to me with this set

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Speaker 3: of aid, even though I now know there were originally

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Speaker 3: going to be more. This just feels right. Somehow it

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Speaker 3: got to the right place.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And from what I understand of Krisawa was approached

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Speaker 1: to filmmaking, this seems to line up with the way

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Speaker 1: he approached things, like you just sort of fine tune

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Speaker 1: it as you go and then the eventual final form

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Speaker 1: presents itself to you. And in that case is these

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Speaker 1: are the segments and this is the order.

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Speaker 3: That's interesting, And this might not actually be a contradiction,

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Speaker 3: but I've always read about I saw as a very

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Speaker 3: a very meticulously planning, in advanced kind of filmmaker that

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Speaker 3: like he can sort of see all the shots in

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Speaker 3: his head ahead of time, and he sort of is

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Speaker 3: editing in his mind ahead of time. Have you read

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Speaker 3: similar things?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, absolutely it was. I had not really consumed

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Speaker 1: much about the man or his approach to filmmaking prior

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Speaker 1: to checking out a couple of the documentaries on the

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Speaker 1: Criterion collection disc for this film, which I'll reference here

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Speaker 1: in a bit, But there's a behind the scenes, some

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Speaker 1: behind the scenes footage where you could see him in

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Speaker 1: action shooting with the picture. And then there's a there's

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Speaker 1: a great twenty eleven documentary as well titled Kisawa's Way

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Speaker 1: that you know gets into this a bit as well.

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Speaker 1: And Yeah, one of the things that I found very

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Speaker 1: interesting is that like he's apparently you know, very much

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Speaker 1: kind of a loner, a man of few words. He

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Speaker 1: would what he would say about his process, and certainly

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Speaker 1: in his directorial approach was often succinct and to the point.

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Speaker 1: But uh, but he wasn't. He was admittedly like not

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Speaker 1: somebody that would talk about theory a lot like it

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Speaker 1: kind of like he sees it in his head, he

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Speaker 1: knows exactly how he wants it to work, and then

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Speaker 1: you know, some amount of experimentation finding that that form.

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Speaker 1: But he's he's not spouting a lot of theory. He's

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Speaker 1: not then doing a lot of film theory analysis of

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Speaker 1: what worked and what didn't, And it's kind of left

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Speaker 1: to all of the people that he influenced to come

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Speaker 1: back and continually rewatch and describe exactly what he was doing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I was thinking about how, you know, sometimes people

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Speaker 3: break down filmmakers into oh, I don't know, I guess

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Speaker 3: the rough division would be like technical filmmakers versus humanistic filmmakers,

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Speaker 3: those who are more concerned with with the technical expression

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Speaker 3: of an artistic vision. You know, they're using their techniques

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Speaker 3: and skills to sort of put what they see in

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Speaker 3: their head on the screen, versus the humanistic vision that

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Speaker 3: is more concerned with themes and characters and film as

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Speaker 3: narrative and film as kind of I don't know, an

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Speaker 3: abstract product, something that you could explain and talk about

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Speaker 3: and interpret the meaning of. And I think you could

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Speaker 3: easily make the case that Corrusawa is very much both.

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Speaker 3: Like you could make the argument that he has won

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Speaker 3: more than the other but in both directions.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like he has. He certainly has all those

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Speaker 1: technical abilities and those exceptional at them, but they're they're

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Speaker 1: kind of they kind of almost seems like they're internalized

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Speaker 1: to a degree to where it's like all this is

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Speaker 1: going on inside. And again he's not discussing the theory

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Speaker 1: of how it's all coming together, but it certainly comes together.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: I had typed up a list of themes I saw

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Speaker 3: emerging in multiple segments of the film that I was

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Speaker 3: maybe going to talk about here, but actually I think

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Speaker 3: we should save that for later in the episode, after

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Speaker 3: we talk about.

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Speaker 4: The plot in a little more detail, or the.

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Speaker 3: Plots all right, So we would usually say an elevator

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Speaker 3: pitch here. I think we've sort of already given it.

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Speaker 3: It's Kira Kurosawa takes you on a tour of his dreams.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I would also submit, oops, I had another dream.

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Speaker 3: They do like there's a transition that often pops in

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Speaker 3: to just say I had another dream.

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Speaker 1: All right. If you would like to watch dreams, secure

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Speaker 1: Crosawa's Dreams. Fortunately, this one's widely available, various streaming options

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Speaker 1: out there. You know, we can watch it digitally. I

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Speaker 1: watched it on the Criterion collection Blu Ray, which I

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Speaker 1: run in from Atlanta's own video Drome. Some excellent extras

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Speaker 1: on this disc, as you'd expect, and I'll be referencing

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Speaker 1: some of those. It's must purchase for anyone, or must

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Speaker 1: rent for anyone who wants to go for a deeper

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Speaker 1: dive into this movie. As of this recording, the film

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Speaker 1: is not on Criterion Channel, but as with any streaming service,

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Speaker 1: titles come and go there. I don't know if that's

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Speaker 1: simply the case or it has something to do with

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Speaker 1: the Warner Brothers aspect of this production. I'm not sure,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, you can definitely get it on Criterion Collection,

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Speaker 1: Blu ray or DVD, but it's not on Criterion Channel

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Speaker 1: right now.

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Speaker 3: All right, should we talk about the connections?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, let's get into it. Starting, I guess with Kia Kurrasawa,

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Speaker 1: the director and writer who lived nineteen ten through nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety eight. And I really have to preface here and

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Speaker 1: say that it feels really challenging to do any sort

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Speaker 1: of brief summary of such a cinematic icon. But you know,

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Speaker 1: here it goes. This brief summary year based on some

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Speaker 1: information that I read at the excellent Akira Kurosawa dot

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Speaker 1: info page, which is really good, as well as the

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Speaker 1: extras on the disc that I just referenced. So, Krasawa

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Speaker 1: was the youngest child and a moderately wealthy Japanese family

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Speaker 1: descended from the former samurai class. His initial creative interest

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Speaker 1: was painting, which is interesting given one of our segments

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Speaker 1: in this film, but he followed his gifted older brother

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Speaker 1: Hago in his passion for cinema. Hago worked as an

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Speaker 1: on site silent film narrator or benshi at this time

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Speaker 1: and apparently enjoyed some amount of success there, and as

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Speaker 1: Akira lived with him at the time, he was able

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Speaker 1: to gain entry into an array of films, plays, and

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Speaker 1: circus performances, which he would later cite as being very

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Speaker 1: influential on his craft. Now, Hago's work dried up with

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Speaker 1: the decline of silent films during the nineteen thirties. Akira

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Speaker 1: moved back with his parents and two of his sisters,

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Speaker 1: and Hago sadly died by suicide in nineteen thirty three.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty five, A Kura Kursawa answered an advert

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Speaker 1: in the newspaper from Photo Chemical Laboratories PCL. This is

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Speaker 1: what would go on to become Toho Studios. They were

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Speaker 1: seeking new assistant directors to engage in a mentor apprenticeship program,

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Speaker 1: and so Akira submitted an essay. I've read that it

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Speaker 1: was kind of a cheeky submit where he's like the

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Speaker 1: prompt was something like, what would you do to fix

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Speaker 1: Japanese cinema and he's like, it can't be fixed or

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Speaker 1: something I don't know. At any rate, he won them over.

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Speaker 1: He received a call back, and he went on to

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Speaker 1: work with numerous established and up and coming directors a

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Speaker 1: special note his mentor, Kajiro Yamamoto. Krasawa also took to

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Speaker 1: screenwriting during this time, saw the value of that, and

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Speaker 1: he served as a second unit or assistant director on

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Speaker 1: numerous films and wrote screenplays for a handful of films

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Speaker 1: before co writing and filming his first directorial effort with

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty three's Senshiro Sugata, a serious judo drama. I've

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Speaker 1: not seen this one, but I've seen some clips from it,

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Speaker 1: and they discussed it in the extras on the disc.

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Speaker 1: It would spun in nineteen forty five sequel, which he

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Speaker 1: also co wrote and directed. In the twenty eleven documentary

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Speaker 1: Cursawa was way on the Criterion collection disc, they point

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Speaker 1: out this picture's sublime portrayal of action. So it's a

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Speaker 1: judo film. It's a wrestling picture, but like a serious one,

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Speaker 1: not like a Santo picture or some of the latter

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Speaker 1: you know, Japanese pro wrestling of pictures and so forth.

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Speaker 1: But the action is really interesting, because it has pointed

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Speaker 1: out in this documentary, there's less of a focus on

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Speaker 1: the actual grappling, or certainly the most impactful physical moments

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Speaker 1: of the grappling and more on audience responses audio emotional

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Speaker 1: responses to the impact, so we won't actually see the impact,

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Speaker 1: we'll see how people respond to it, and then we'll

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Speaker 1: see sort of the results of that impact, which is

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Speaker 1: very interesting. So Krisawa's wartime work included propaganda films, which

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Speaker 1: apparently also included, to varying degrees, the Judo Pictures, especially

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Speaker 1: the sequel. His work during this time sometimes was seen

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Speaker 1: as too Western by sensors, and his nineteen forty five

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Speaker 1: film The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, a

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Speaker 1: period piece, managed to run a foul of both imperial

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Speaker 1: Japanese sensors and then subsequently American occupation censors, for being

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Speaker 1: in one case too democratic and then in the other

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Speaker 1: case too feudal. I guess this is often the case.

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Speaker 1: If you're managing to piss everyone off, maybe you're doing

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Speaker 1: something right.

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Speaker 4: Now.

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Speaker 1: We can't walk through every Kurasawa picture, but we might

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Speaker 1: reasonably summarize his post war work along the stepping stones

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Speaker 1: of No Regrets for Our Youth in forty six, the

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Speaker 1: award winning One Wonderful Sunday from forty six as well,

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Speaker 1: I believe, and then nineteen forty eight Drunken Angel, considered

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Speaker 1: by many to be his first major work and his

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Speaker 1: first picture to feature Toshiro Mafuni, who Kurasawa would famously

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Speaker 1: utilize in many of his masterpieces to come, including nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifties Raschaman, which earned him international acclaim, including recognition at

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Speaker 1: the Academy Awards in nineteen fifty two, and from there,

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Speaker 1: Krasawa went on to write and direct some of the

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Speaker 1: best regarded films in cinema history, including but not limited to,

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Speaker 1: fifty four to seven Samurai, fifty seven's Throwne of Blood,

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Speaker 1: fifty eight's The Hidden Fortress, sixty one's Yojimbo, sixty threes,

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Speaker 1: High and Low, nineteen eighties Kji Musha The Shadow Warrior,

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Speaker 1: and nineteen eighty five's Ron. These decades entailed various ups

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Speaker 1: and down industry changes, some unsuccessful Hollywood projects, most notably

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Speaker 1: Runaway Train, which would ultimately be directed by another director

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five, various setbacks and excursion of the

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Speaker 1: Soviet Union to shoot nineteen seventy five's Durso Usala, and

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Speaker 1: a Comeback partially produced by influential American directors who he

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Speaker 1: had heavily influenced, himself, and this was increasingly important as

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Speaker 1: Japanese studios were in this time less likely to back him,

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Speaker 1: and so he was increasingly turning to outside and foreign financers.

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Speaker 1: And certainly that's the case with Dreams.

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Speaker 3: Was it the case with his later films that they

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Speaker 3: were regarded both in Japan and internationally as masterpieces, but

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Speaker 3: they also didn't make a lot of money.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I've read I was looking at like some

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Speaker 1: contemporary Ebert reviews talking about like what happens when you

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Speaker 1: have like a master who you know, keeps doing their

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Speaker 1: own thing, but you know, doesn't necessarily it is not

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Speaker 1: necessarily chasing what the audience wants, And maybe some of that.

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Speaker 1: I was looking at some information about how this film

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Speaker 1: Dreams was received, and I've seen it described as kind

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Speaker 1: of like a largely muted response both domestically and internationally.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, there was like a lot

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Speaker 1: of excitement for it, especially among directors who admired his

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Speaker 1: work so much. And another interesting wrinkle is that apparently,

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Speaker 1: I mean, this comes as a surprise I think for

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Speaker 1: many because I know when I started watching Krosawa films

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Speaker 1: they were airing I think on Turner classic movies and

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Speaker 1: or American movie classics. Even it seems weird that they

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Speaker 1: would be on a movie class American movie class and

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Speaker 1: showed a lot of different films. But at any rate,

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Speaker 1: I had ready access to them on television on cable,

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Speaker 1: and nowadays, you know, you have all these excellent criterion

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Speaker 1: collection editions, but apparently for a while, they weren't all

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Speaker 1: necessarily available on home video, with the exception of Dreams

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Speaker 1: because of the Warner Brothers connection.

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Speaker 4: Oh I see.

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Speaker 1: So even if the initial response was kind of muted,

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Speaker 1: more and more people had the opportunity to see Dreams,

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Speaker 1: and of course it gradually earned it more of a following,

431
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:36,520
Speaker 1: and I think is also seen as this interesting outlier

432
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:40,199
Speaker 1: in Corosawa's filmography. You know, there's nothing else quite like

433
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 1: it among his other titles.

434
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 3: My general impression is that a lot of critics don't

435
00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 3: put it at.

436
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:48,960
Speaker 4: Like his in his top tier list.

437
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:50,880
Speaker 3: You know, it's not in a lot of people's top

438
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:54,440
Speaker 3: five Corosawa movies or whatever, but that it is nowadays

439
00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:55,480
Speaker 3: widely respected.

440
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:58,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's one of those filmographers though right

441
00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:01,120
Speaker 1: where it's like, if you're talking about the seventh best

442
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:05,160
Speaker 1: Kurrosawa film, you're still talking about a great motion picture. Yeah.

443
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: So Krisaw was honored at the sixty second Academy Awards

444
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:11,360
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety and he went on to complete two

445
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:14,720
Speaker 1: more films, nineteen ninety one's Rhapsody in August and nineteen

446
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:18,399
Speaker 1: ninety three's Maddeo. He was working on The Sea Is

447
00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:21,200
Speaker 1: Watching in nineteen ninety five when he apparently suffered a fall,

448
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 1: leaving him unabuilt to direct, and his health rapidly declined

449
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:26,960
Speaker 1: in the following years, and he passed away in nineteen

450
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 1: ninety eight. The Sea Is Watching would ultimately be made

451
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:33,480
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two by a different director, among

452
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,199
Speaker 1: a couple of other posthumous screenplay credits. Now to come

453
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:37,800
Speaker 1: back to something I was talking about here earlier. One

454
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: of the things driven home by numerous Japanese and international

455
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:44,520
Speaker 1: directors and Kursaw was way the documentary is that he

456
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 1: is really the epitome of a director's director. I imagine you

457
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:49,520
Speaker 1: could take that a step further now and say that

458
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:53,159
Speaker 1: he's a director's director's director, or to that effect.

459
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:57,119
Speaker 3: Meaning he is appreciated especially by other practitioners of the

460
00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:01,400
Speaker 3: art form, not just by audiences, especially like people who

461
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:04,200
Speaker 3: make films, really admire the way he makes films.

462
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:08,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems really difficult to overstress his influence on

463
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:11,400
Speaker 1: modern cinema and directors around the world, directors who would

464
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: often and continue to analyze every minute detail of how

465
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:18,720
Speaker 1: his direction of actors, lighting, framing, use of space and

466
00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:21,680
Speaker 1: everything else came together on the screen. And it can

467
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 1: almost be invisible, I think to many of us, because

468
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 1: if you're watching a Krosawa film, I mean, it's magic

469
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 1: is going to work on you. You are going to

470
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:33,240
Speaker 1: You're not going to necessarily unless you're making an effort to.

471
00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:35,400
Speaker 1: You're just it's going to its spell is going to work.

472
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 1: You're not going to be maybe thinking about how he's

473
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 1: shooting everything because and part of it, too, I think,

474
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 1: is because he was so influential, many of the things

475
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:47,639
Speaker 1: he did simply became more or less standards of filmmaking.

476
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's true that a lot of times

477
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 3: good technical directing does not really call attention to itself.

478
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 3: It manifests in utter absorption in the narrative and content.

479
00:26:58,400 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so you're.

480
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:02,600
Speaker 3: Watching seven Samurai, you might not be thinking a lot

481
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 3: about the you know, how every shot is being framed

482
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:08,399
Speaker 3: and how he captures movement and light and stuff, but

483
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:12,200
Speaker 3: you know that your attention is held very closely, and

484
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 3: that's sort of like how it comes through to the

485
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:15,360
Speaker 3: average viewer.

486
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 1: Absolutely. All right, let's move on to some other folks

487
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:22,159
Speaker 1: involved in this picture with less detail we've covered. The

488
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: big one here, of course, is Sho Honda, who lived

489
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:29,600
Speaker 1: nineteen eleven through nineteen ninety three, famed director of Godzilla,

490
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:33,400
Speaker 1: who we've discussed in the show I think three different times,

491
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:36,680
Speaker 1: most recently in our discussion of nineteen sixty four's mathra

492
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:39,400
Speaker 1: versus Godzilla. He was a creative consultant on this picture.

493
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 3: I think I read that especially his experience in the

494
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 3: military was used to choreograph the sequence called the Tunnel

495
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:50,920
Speaker 3: where we see military we see army members marching in formation.

496
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And also, you know, I have to say

497
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:59,000
Speaker 1: that the Mount Fuji segment also feels very Honda, like

498
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:01,720
Speaker 1: you can imagine him at least standing in the background

499
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:04,680
Speaker 1: nodding and being like, yep, you've you nailed at Krosawa

500
00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 1: on that one. All right, Getting into the actors here,

501
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 1: starting with the dreamer generally credited as I, because we

502
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:18,520
Speaker 1: keep having that dead us where we read the words

503
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: I had another dream, and then here is our dreamer,

504
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 1: Our dream walker. I our Dreamer is played by Akira

505
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:29,119
Speaker 1: Tera Hope born nineteen forty seven. Born into a successful

506
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 1: acting family. He's also a musician, having been in the

507
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties band The Savage Joe. I included an album

508
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 1: cover from The Savage They don't look very savage. They

509
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 1: look just like some very clean cut guys here.

510
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, they look like they're they're ready to head down

511
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 3: to the sokop.

512
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: Yeah. But he subsequently launched a successful solo career, and

513
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 1: I think in this he took on a more edgy

514
00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 1: persona and often had kind of like a like a

515
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,520
Speaker 1: nihilistic kind of like dressed in black, wearing sunglasses thing

516
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:00,280
Speaker 1: going on.

517
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 3: Holding a twelve string guitar, looking like nothing matters.

518
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah. Successful musician, award winning musician, and then

519
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:12,120
Speaker 1: as an actor. He debuted in nineteen sixty eight The

520
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 1: Sands of Kurobi and later appeared in Karasawa was Ron.

521
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 1: He's also in nineteen ninety six is Rebirth of Mathra

522
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:23,280
Speaker 1: and two thousand and four's cas Hern. This is one

523
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 1: Caserne is not. I haven't seen either of these two

524
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 1: films actually, but Caserne is one that I've seen in

525
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 1: video stores for years because it has some sort of

526
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:33,920
Speaker 1: like a space ninja on it. I don't know much

527
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 1: about it. If you out there are fans, write in

528
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 1: and tell me all about it.

529
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:37,560
Speaker 4: You know.

530
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:40,680
Speaker 3: I was going to say, in talking about the themes

531
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 3: of the film that one of them is the self

532
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 3: as both fluid and constant. The protagonist in each of

533
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 3: these dreams, I think you could say, is the same

534
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 3: person and yet is also quite different, and both in

535
00:29:56,800 --> 00:30:02,840
Speaker 3: terms of apparent life history, some aspects of personality seem

536
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 3: to change. Sometimes the protagonist is assertive, sometimes the protagonist

537
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 3: is quite passive. That just varies a lot between the segments,

538
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:17,040
Speaker 3: and there's no narrative continuity between them, but there is

539
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 3: a kind of thematic continuity, like the segments are strung

540
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 3: together by associations and preoccupations rather than causality. And so

541
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:28,720
Speaker 3: this was making me think, I was trying to watch

542
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 3: in the performance, like do the events of one dream

543
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 3: at all affect the protagonist in a different dream? And

544
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:40,960
Speaker 3: I think you could see it going both ways, Like

545
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:44,360
Speaker 3: the events of the movie never seem to be literally additive,

546
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 3: and yet they may be kind of like the other

547
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 3: dreams are kind of stirring in the memory of the

548
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 3: protagonist in the other segments. You know, I don't know

549
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 3: exactly how you would read that into tara Oh's performance here,

550
00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 3: but that does feel right. It feels like it's part

551
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 3: of his story that there is I don't know somehow,

552
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 3: like not complete conscious knowledge of what was dreamt in

553
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 3: the other dreams, but a kind of vague sense of

554
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 3: I've had a feeling like this before.

555
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean that's the way it often feels

556
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 1: with dreams. You know, you might bring the content of

557
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 1: one dream into the next. And also, at least in

558
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: my own experience, like sometimes you're you, and the dreams

559
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 1: sometimes you're less you. And then so I feel like

560
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:30,680
Speaker 1: this character is you know sometimes you know. I think

561
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:32,600
Speaker 1: in general we can think of him as a Kurosawa

562
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 1: stand in. Sometimes he's more of a voyeuristic figure or

563
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:40,040
Speaker 1: even an avatar by which we experience the dream, though

564
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:44,560
Speaker 1: his role is more personal and intense in certain segments,

565
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:46,520
Speaker 1: namely the Tunnel, which we'll get to.

566
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, I certainly had the Tunnel in mind for

567
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:55,840
Speaker 3: his more like assertive and active roles, but almost always,

568
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,080
Speaker 3: and I guess this is often true of dreams. He's

569
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 3: more reacting than acting on the world, and often reacting

570
00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 3: with a kind of futility.

571
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, because again there's all these or most of

572
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 1: these dreams, if not all of them. They begin with

573
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 1: the sense of being trapped in something like we're maybe

574
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 1: not trapped. Trapped is too strong a word, too nightmarish,

575
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 1: like you know, in the texture of dreams, like sometimes

576
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:21,200
Speaker 1: you're just there and you're a part of it. I

577
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 1: don't know, it's hard to really state it, but anyway, Yeah,

578
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:28,080
Speaker 1: I like his performance. It kind of the exact details

579
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 1: of it change from sequence to sequence, and then to

580
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:34,240
Speaker 1: be clear, in subsequences. I the Dreamer is played by

581
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 1: a child a couple of different actors I believe, Mitsunori

582
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,240
Speaker 1: Issaki born seventy seven, and then another actor by the

583
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: name of Toshiko Nakano playing younger versions of the Dreamer.

584
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 3: I think you could argue that the segments of the

585
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 3: film are roughly chronological in terms of the protagonists age.

586
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 3: I don't know if exactly, but like the first one,

587
00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 3: the protagonist is the youngest. The second one, he's the

588
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:03,600
Speaker 3: second young and then becomes an adult, and it does

589
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 3: seem to progress through a kind of maturity arc in

590
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:07,560
Speaker 3: life from there.

591
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe so, all right. Rolling through some of

592
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 1: the other performances here, of note, we have Metsuko Basho

593
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: as the dreamer's mother in the first sequence. Born nineteen

594
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 1: forty six, Japanese Academy Award winning actress whose credits include

595
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine Vengeance's Mine, nineteen eighty's Kija Musha, and

596
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: a voice roll in two thousand and six's Tales from Earth.

597
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 1: See that's a Gorol Miyazaki.

598
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 3: Film adapted from the Ursula of the Win.

599
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yeah. Then of course, eventually we're going to

600
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 1: get our yuki Ono, the snow Fairy or the snow Woman,

601
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 1: the snow Witch. More on the details of this character

602
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 1: in a bit, but this is of course a yokai

603
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 1: that pops up throughout Japanese media, played here by Miko

604
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:55,640
Speaker 1: Harada born nineteen fifty eight. She was also coming off

605
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:59,040
Speaker 1: a major role in Kurosawa's Ron, and her other credits

606
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 1: include seventy nine The Inferno, nineteen eighty eight's Tokyo the

607
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: Last Megalopolis. That's one I haven't seen, but that one's

608
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:08,400
Speaker 1: kind of famous for a couple of different reasons, including

609
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:12,520
Speaker 1: the fact that hr Giger designed something for it. Twenty

610
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 1: twelves Helter Skelter, and Oh, I don't know anything about

611
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 1: this one, but sometimes the title just catches you. Twenty sixteens.

612
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 1: If Katz disappeared from the world, I'm enthralled. I need

613
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 1: to know more about that one. But anyway, she's won

614
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:30,319
Speaker 1: multiple acting awards in her native Japan, all right. In

615
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:35,279
Speaker 1: the tunnel sequence, we have a ghostly figure from the

616
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:40,240
Speaker 1: past that shows up. Private Naguchi played by Yoshitaka Sushi

617
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:43,759
Speaker 1: born nineteen fifty five, another Ron cast member who was

618
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 1: also in a number of other pictures, including two other

619
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:51,360
Speaker 1: Kurosawa pictures, sixty five's Red Beard and nineteen seventies Dotsukata

620
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:53,479
Speaker 1: Now Laid In the picture, We're gonna have an old

621
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 1: man character who is fabulous, played by Chishu Ryu, who

622
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,800
Speaker 1: lived nineteen oh four through nineteen ninety three. Award winning

623
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 1: and long lasting Japanese actor. His workspan six decades, and

624
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:09,040
Speaker 1: his other credits include Redbeard, nineteen fifty three's Tokyo Story

625
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 1: and nineteen eighty five's Mashima A Life in four chapters.

626
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 1: He also appeared in Vim Vendors Until the End of

627
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:16,399
Speaker 1: the World in nineteen ninety one.

628
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 3: And in many ways, this old man is kind of

629
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:21,600
Speaker 3: the soul of the movie, especially appearing as he does

630
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:22,720
Speaker 3: in the last segment.

631
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's terrific. I really love this performance. This guy's great, and.

632
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 4: He has some opinions.

633
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:32,839
Speaker 3: He's of all the segment. He's just like saying opinions

634
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 3: into the camera.

635
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:34,959
Speaker 1: Yes, but he's great.

636
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:38,320
Speaker 3: It's got that quality of like he's old, let him talk.

637
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:40,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I think he may have. I think

638
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 1: this guy speaks more than anyone else in the picture.

639
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 1: I don't know. We get a lot as well from

640
00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 1: the Crying Demon. And this character was played by Chosuki Ikaria,

641
00:35:52,040 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen thirty one through two thousand and four.

642
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:57,080
Speaker 1: His other credits include nineteen ninety one's My Son's and

643
00:35:57,200 --> 00:35:59,279
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight's Base Side Shakedown.

644
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:01,480
Speaker 3: You know, one thing I didn't know about the cast

645
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 3: when I pictured this movie is that it was going

646
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:06,319
Speaker 3: to have Martin Scorsese acting in it.

647
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:11,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, playing Vincent van go H, legendary American

648
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:17,880
Speaker 1: director and noted Corosawa admire. Yeah, he's definitely in that

649
00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:21,840
Speaker 1: documentary Crosawa's way talking about his experience on the film

650
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:25,919
Speaker 1: and his admiration for Crosawa's work. And it's interesting because, Yeah,

651
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:31,960
Speaker 1: so Scorsese himself an admirer of Corossawa and studier of

652
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:36,920
Speaker 1: Kurisolwa's work here playing a master painter admired by the dreamer,

653
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 1: and so it's kind of a neat inversion there, literally

654
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:44,160
Speaker 1: following the master into his work here.

655
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 4: Yes.

656
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:48,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, is it true that he interrupted making Goodfellas to

657
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:50,000
Speaker 3: like fly in to shoot this.

658
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:53,480
Speaker 1: Oh I didn't read that, but that sounds or hear

659
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:56,640
Speaker 1: that in the doc but that that sounds likely. Yes,

660
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 1: I mean that's the kind of respect that that all

661
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:01,839
Speaker 1: of these directors had for him.

662
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 3: I also found Scorsese's screen presence interesting because he does

663
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 3: not come in the way sometimes like a well known

664
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:13,839
Speaker 3: director cameo in acting can feel where it's like, oh,

665
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's like I'm the big important person

666
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 3: now here, I'm ego crashing into the scene and taking

667
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:22,759
Speaker 3: it over. He feels very in service of the scene.

668
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 3: It's one of those performances where it feels like he

669
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:28,759
Speaker 3: is just trying to do what Corsawa wants of him

670
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:29,960
Speaker 3: and is telling him to do.

671
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:35,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, Martins Scorsese occasionally does these little acting bets, sometimes

672
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:39,320
Speaker 1: playing a fictional version of himself, sometimes playing a fictional

673
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:43,720
Speaker 1: a different character. But he's generally pretty good. Yeah, sometimes

674
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:48,279
Speaker 1: it's certainly a little broader in his performance. But yeah,

675
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 1: that's a good point is he does seem to be

676
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 1: essentially trying to play Vincent van Goh here. And I

677
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 1: was also thinking this is also perfect like dream logic,

678
00:37:58,080 --> 00:38:00,399
Speaker 1: you know, like I had a dream last night and

679
00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 1: I was having a conversation with Vincent van Go, but

680
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 1: he was also somehow Martin Scorcesei at the same time. Yes,

681
00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:10,400
Speaker 1: that's kind of the vibe here, another fun little cameo,

682
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 1: I guess you would say. In that particular segment, the

683
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:18,319
Speaker 1: woman in the fields that the dreamer initially interacts with

684
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 1: before being sent in the direction of Vincent van Goh

685
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 1: is played by Catherine cadau Kurisaw was longtime personal translator

686
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 1: and director of that twenty eleven documentary.

687
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 3: Curisaw was way oh interesting. So she's the one washing

688
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:35,279
Speaker 3: washing in the river who tells him that tells him

689
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:37,360
Speaker 3: to stay away from Van Go because he's a Madman.

690
00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:40,920
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, I just came out of the asylum. Yeah. Oh.

691
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:42,880
Speaker 1: And then getting to the music. The music here is

692
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 1: of course terrific, and the composer credited is Shinichiro Akibi

693
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 1: born nineteen forty three, Japanese composer whose film work includes

694
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 1: chrisaw Was, Kju Musha, Rhapsody in August and Madeo. His

695
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 1: other scores include T's Future Boy Conan from nineteen seventy

696
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:06,280
Speaker 1: eight that was an early directorial effort from Hayo Miyazaki

697
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:09,880
Speaker 1: and two thousand and seven's Glory to the filmmaker. He

698
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:12,800
Speaker 1: won the Japanese Academy Award for composing multiple times.

699
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:17,040
Speaker 3: I think in addition to some original compositions, this movie

700
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:20,959
Speaker 3: does also feature some classical compositions, like I think there's

701
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:24,600
Speaker 3: some Chapan in it and stuff. But yes, the music

702
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 3: is wonderful, especially oh, it's wonderful throughout. I'm especially thinking

703
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 3: of the mysterious music in the very first segment.

704
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:37,600
Speaker 1: Also, I love the funeral procession music at the end.

705
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:41,640
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, yes, I'm not sure at different points

706
00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:44,280
Speaker 1: in the film whether we're looking at the composed score

707
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:45,800
Speaker 1: or needle drop.

708
00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 4: Score.

709
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:50,760
Speaker 1: But at any rate, it's all really good. Yeah. Finally,

710
00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 1: I also want to note that if you start looking

711
00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:55,760
Speaker 1: at the special effects credits on this film, you'll notice

712
00:39:55,960 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 1: a lot of Western names via those connections that Krosawa

713
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:04,239
Speaker 1: had with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Its industrial light

714
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:06,680
Speaker 1: and magic handling the special effects on this, you know,

715
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 1: Otherwise Japanese production. Apparently they did this at cost. Though,

716
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:12,399
Speaker 1: I have to say watching the picture, I mean, it's

717
00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:15,680
Speaker 1: not like you really notice. It's not like I LM.

718
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:18,440
Speaker 1: Came in and made all the Fox people look like

719
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:21,280
Speaker 1: wookies or anything. I don't know. It's like the effects

720
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 1: are I guess, really good and often invisible.

721
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:25,960
Speaker 4: They're very organic.

722
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:26,239
Speaker 1: Yeah.

723
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:30,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, the effects feel almost humble in a way. Does

724
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:35,799
Speaker 3: that make sense, Not flashy, just kind of manifesting.

725
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:36,399
Speaker 4: I don't know.

726
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. There is some behind the scenes footage on the

727
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:45,040
Speaker 1: Criterion collection just showing Carosawa directing the scenes where we

728
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:47,480
Speaker 1: have the makeup effects for the Fox people as well

729
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:52,040
Speaker 1: as the Hornet demons, and you know, he's he seems

730
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:53,480
Speaker 1: to be like, you know, sort of tweaking things a

731
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 1: little bit, and in the case of the demons, saying like,

732
00:40:56,080 --> 00:40:58,680
Speaker 1: let's tone it down a little bit, like essentially they

733
00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 1: look too much like monsters. We want, we want the

734
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:05,839
Speaker 1: viewers to understand that these are humans. So I get

735
00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:08,640
Speaker 1: the impression that Krisa will maybe even sead of them

736
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:12,359
Speaker 1: scale back a little bit on things, because you know,

737
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:15,480
Speaker 1: often I think it's the case in this picture that

738
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 1: other worldly beings they do have a kind of like

739
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:23,320
Speaker 1: stage presence, Like they certainly come off like human beings

740
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:26,160
Speaker 1: in makeup, and there's not there doesn't seem to be

741
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:30,800
Speaker 1: an overt attempt to portray them as overtly other worldly beings,

742
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:32,600
Speaker 1: Like there's a humanity to them that I guess is

743
00:41:32,719 --> 00:41:33,319
Speaker 1: essential here.

744
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:45,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's right. Should we jump into the plot,

745
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,120
Speaker 3: let's do it, Okay. So, as I mentioned, there are

746
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 3: these eight segments. We're going to talk about some of them,

747
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:54,720
Speaker 3: I think in more detail than others. I wanted to

748
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:57,680
Speaker 3: start off talking about the first one. I love all

749
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 3: the segments in this movie, but the very first one

750
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:02,920
Speaker 3: is probably my favorite. So I want to kind of

751
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:05,040
Speaker 3: look at it in some detail. And this is the

752
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:09,880
Speaker 3: one called Sunshine through the Rain. So it begins with

753
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:12,200
Speaker 3: a young boy coming out the front door of his

754
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:16,560
Speaker 3: house looking like he wants to go play outside, but

755
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,279
Speaker 3: just as he is heading out, it starts to rain.

756
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 3: And I don't know somehow that beginning in itself, even

757
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 3: before we really are thinking of this as a dream,

758
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 3: that's so evocative of childhood, you know, the feeling of

759
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 3: wanting to go outside and play and it starts raining,

760
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 3: Or at least it was for me. I don't know

761
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 3: that that feels like such a familiar and cutting kind

762
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:42,399
Speaker 3: of frustration. So the boy, he's come out the door

763
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:44,960
Speaker 3: of his house, but he stands under an archway in

764
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 3: the gate that goes around the outside of the home,

765
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 3: and he's watching the rain come down. And it is

766
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 3: a sunshower, so the sun is shining even though there

767
00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:58,239
Speaker 3: is precipitation. And then from the background, we see the

768
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:00,920
Speaker 3: boy's mother emerge from the house and she hurries out

769
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:03,880
Speaker 3: into the courtyard to gather some baskets of something. I

770
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 3: think maybe she was drying some kind of food items

771
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 3: in the sun or something. And she's pulling the baskets

772
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 3: inside and she calls out to the boy and she says,

773
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:15,480
Speaker 3: you're staying home. The sun is shining, but it's raining.

774
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:19,759
Speaker 3: Foxes hold their wedding processions in this weather and they

775
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:23,040
Speaker 3: don't like anyone to see them. If you do, they'll

776
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 3: be very angry, and she runs back inside. So actually,

777
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:30,920
Speaker 3: maybe here should we do a little sidebar on the

778
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:36,320
Speaker 3: folklore of the Kitsuni no yumeiri. This is the fox's wedding.

779
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Katsuni we've discussed on the show before. We're

780
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:43,560
Speaker 1: talking about fox spirits and Japanese traditions so yo kai

781
00:43:44,120 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 1: with supernatural abilities often depicted as tricksters, though in this

782
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 1: case not so much tricksters and more in line with

783
00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:55,920
Speaker 1: sort of global traditions of like fairy folk of the

784
00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:59,240
Speaker 1: unseen world who are out there going through their rights

785
00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:04,360
Speaker 1: and observation, and sometimes humans can see into their world,

786
00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:05,920
Speaker 1: but perhaps at they're peril.

787
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:08,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good way to put it.

788
00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 3: So he's received this warning, but the young boy, he

789
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:16,480
Speaker 3: is maybe not deterred. He looks out at the downpour.

790
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:18,960
Speaker 3: He stands there and stares for a bit, and then

791
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:20,560
Speaker 3: he wanders off into the forest.

792
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean mom's warning here was kind of asking

793
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:26,759
Speaker 1: for it, like, don't go outside now, because there are

794
00:44:26,800 --> 00:44:28,120
Speaker 1: fox spirits out there.

795
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:30,880
Speaker 4: You might see something amazing.

796
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:36,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I love the scene in the forest here.

797
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:42,480
Speaker 3: So the forest is eerie and just pulsing with magic.

798
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 3: So the trees are enormous. We don't see really the

799
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:48,760
Speaker 3: tops of the trees. We just see these column like trunks,

800
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:52,800
Speaker 3: and the ground is covered in sprouting plants with long

801
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 3: green leaves that come up to the boy's waist. And

802
00:44:56,400 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 3: we can see sheets of rain and mist are billowing

803
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 3: sideways through the gaps between the trees, and then you

804
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 3: can also see individual shafts of sunlight crossing down through

805
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:11,800
Speaker 3: holes in the canopy, and all this together makes the

806
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 3: air appear to have a kind of silky shimmering texture.

807
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 3: It's so beautiful and it looks like a place absolutely

808
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 3: where magic happens. And as we watch the scene, there

809
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:26,520
Speaker 3: is just this mounting sense of the strange and unreal.

810
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:29,680
Speaker 3: For example, one thing is you see a close up

811
00:45:29,680 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 3: of the boy who is He's walking silently through the woods.

812
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:36,760
Speaker 3: He's looking around, not saying anything, and I noticed he's dry.

813
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:42,280
Speaker 3: It's raining, but he's not wet. There's no music, no talking,

814
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 3: just this kind of soft skittering sound of rain on

815
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 3: the leaves, and the boy just keeps looking around, wide

816
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:52,960
Speaker 3: eyed like he is expecting to see something. And then

817
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:56,600
Speaker 3: he does see something. There's a bank of white mist,

818
00:45:56,800 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 3: and through it he sees the outline of a shrine

819
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:04,960
Speaker 3: carved in stone. And then slowly music begins. We hear

820
00:46:05,120 --> 00:46:09,320
Speaker 3: drums and a wood block and a flute playing a slow,

821
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:13,480
Speaker 3: mysterious melody. The rhythm on the drums in the woodblocks

822
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 3: is also kind of slow and stuttering. And over the

823
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 3: background of this music, the boy watches a procession of

824
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 3: figures slowly marching out of the fog. They are human

825
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 3: dancers in fox makeup rob as you were saying they are.

826
00:46:31,880 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 3: They're distinctly human in forms, so they didn't try to

827
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:38,400
Speaker 3: make them quadrupedal or anything. They're standing upright basically human,

828
00:46:38,880 --> 00:46:42,880
Speaker 3: but their faces are painted a rosy white color, with

829
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 3: red fur over their noses and cheeks, and they have whiskers.

830
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,600
Speaker 3: The women are wearing veils over their heads, and the

831
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:54,360
Speaker 3: men wear a sort of disc shaped hat. The first

832
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:57,800
Speaker 3: two men in the procession are carrying these cylindrical objects.

833
00:46:57,840 --> 00:46:59,560
Speaker 3: I'm not sure what these are, but they might be

834
00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:03,279
Speaker 3: some form of paper lantern. I know that fox wedding

835
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:06,760
Speaker 3: processions in folklore are sometimes said to be carrying paper

836
00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:09,200
Speaker 3: lanterns like you can see them as dancing lights.

837
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:11,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's what this is supposed to be.

838
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:15,719
Speaker 3: And their style of dancing is so interesting and evocative.

839
00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:19,840
Speaker 3: There are these slow, almost glacial movements as they march along,

840
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 3: and then sudden moves where they bend and twist and

841
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:26,920
Speaker 3: assume a pose, all looking in the same direction. I

842
00:47:26,960 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 3: think this is supposed to evoke when a wild animal

843
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 3: senses your presence or gets spooked and then suddenly like

844
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:37,759
Speaker 3: flinches and freezes looking at you. Did you take the

845
00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:38,839
Speaker 3: same thing from it, Rob?

846
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 1: That's a good point, you know. I don't think I've

847
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:42,920
Speaker 1: totally put that together when I was watching it, but

848
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 1: I think that's a great read. I will note that

849
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:48,360
Speaker 1: this is definitely one of the many sequences in the

850
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:51,040
Speaker 1: picture that feels like it could possibly go on forever

851
00:47:51,840 --> 00:47:53,920
Speaker 1: in a good way, in that dream sense where it's

852
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:57,920
Speaker 1: like this is happening and and you're just in it.

853
00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 1: You know, who knows if the dream is going to

854
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:05,600
Speaker 1: is going to continue on to some point of emotional upwelling,

855
00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:06,479
Speaker 1: though of course it will.

856
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:10,280
Speaker 3: In this case lost time, very little consciousness of past

857
00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:14,600
Speaker 3: or future. You're just stuck in this moment, and the

858
00:48:14,640 --> 00:48:17,919
Speaker 3: boy is watching this procession from behind a tree. He's

859
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 3: very cautious. He's trying to hide, and the dancers keep

860
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 3: stopping and suddenly looking in his direction. But at first

861
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:28,239
Speaker 3: he stays hidden until the last time they stop, and

862
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:30,799
Speaker 3: suddenly he's caught. They all turn and look at him,

863
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:33,479
Speaker 3: and the boy panics and runs away back home.

864
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:38,919
Speaker 1: This is not played for horror or anything, but and again,

865
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:43,319
Speaker 1: the makeup is subtle, and it's definitely holding back, but

866
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:45,880
Speaker 1: it is a frightening sequence in its own way, Like

867
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 1: you know, the child has seen into a world he

868
00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:52,640
Speaker 1: should not bear witness to, and they have looked back

869
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:54,000
Speaker 1: and seen him as well.

870
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:56,520
Speaker 3: But when he gets home, the danger is not over.

871
00:48:56,640 --> 00:49:00,440
Speaker 3: Actually that you might think, Okay, he's escaped, he's back now.

872
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,319
Speaker 3: When he gets back to the house, he finds his

873
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:06,719
Speaker 3: mother waiting for him at the front gate, and she's

874
00:49:06,719 --> 00:49:10,719
Speaker 3: looking very stern, and he approaches her kind of bashfully,

875
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:14,000
Speaker 3: like he knows he's done something wrong, but she does

876
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:17,279
Speaker 3: not comfort him. Her face is very stiff and her

877
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:21,799
Speaker 3: expression is cold, and she says, you saw it, didn't you.

878
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:26,040
Speaker 3: You saw something you shouldn't have. I can't have such

879
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:30,160
Speaker 3: a child in my house. An angry fox came looking

880
00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:34,280
Speaker 3: for you. He left this, and then from a pouch

881
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:39,000
Speaker 3: in her sleeve, the mother produces a tonto knife. The

882
00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:42,320
Speaker 3: boy takes it and he pulls the knife from the sheath,

883
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:46,280
Speaker 3: and the mother says, you're to a tone by cutting

884
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:51,160
Speaker 3: your belly open. And I was like, WHOA, that hits hard,

885
00:49:51,239 --> 00:49:53,400
Speaker 3: because this is a little child. This is not like

886
00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:56,360
Speaker 3: a you know, not even like an like the little kid,

887
00:49:57,200 --> 00:50:00,520
Speaker 3: And it hits hard. But this, to me, he felt

888
00:50:01,160 --> 00:50:05,320
Speaker 3: so real as a child's dream turning into a nightmare.

889
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:10,919
Speaker 3: It is so much more unacceptably threatening and dangerous than

890
00:50:11,120 --> 00:50:15,560
Speaker 3: adults like to imagine children's dreams are. But this is

891
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:18,440
Speaker 3: I mean, this is what I remember children's dreams being

892
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:22,040
Speaker 3: like that. There's a way that the child's mind is

893
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:25,279
Speaker 3: sort of uncensored. It is it like it goes to

894
00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:29,840
Speaker 3: much more bold and horrible and frightening places than adults

895
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 3: want a child's mind to go to. And this felt

896
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 3: like a real dream in multiple ways, with like the

897
00:50:35,600 --> 00:50:37,279
Speaker 3: you know, the threat that you have to cut your

898
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:41,000
Speaker 3: own belly open, but also in the in the way

899
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:44,280
Speaker 3: that the mother is not comforting, like he's done something

900
00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:48,360
Speaker 3: bad and the mother has become alien and threatening to him.

901
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:49,080
Speaker 1: Yeah.

902
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:52,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, but then here in the dream, the mother offers

903
00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 3: an alternative. She says, she says, go quickly and ask

904
00:50:56,120 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 3: their forgiveness. Give that back to them, talking about the knife,

905
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 3: give back to them, and beg for your life on

906
00:51:02,520 --> 00:51:03,080
Speaker 3: your knees.

907
00:51:04,080 --> 00:51:04,960
Speaker 4: And then the mother.

908
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:07,719
Speaker 3: Literally turns her back on the boy. She turns her

909
00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:10,440
Speaker 3: back on him and goes inside and starts to close

910
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 3: the gate in her son's face. And as she's closing

911
00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:16,520
Speaker 3: the doors of the gate, she says, they rarely forgive

912
00:51:16,600 --> 00:51:19,799
Speaker 3: even trivial things. You must go prepared to die for

913
00:51:19,880 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 3: your sin. And then as the gate is almost nearly

914
00:51:23,280 --> 00:51:26,120
Speaker 3: shut all the way, she says that until they forgive him,

915
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:29,000
Speaker 3: she can't let him back in. And then finally the

916
00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:31,799
Speaker 3: boy speaks. He pleads that he doesn't know where their

917
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:34,360
Speaker 3: home is, but the mother says, of course you do.

918
00:51:35,239 --> 00:51:38,960
Speaker 3: Their home is beneath the rainbow. And so now the

919
00:51:39,000 --> 00:51:42,240
Speaker 3: gate shuts, and so, now afraid and alone, the boy

920
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:45,400
Speaker 3: sets out again into the woods with the deadly knife

921
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:48,800
Speaker 3: in his hands, and eventually he comes to a clearing

922
00:51:49,320 --> 00:51:53,400
Speaker 3: and it's a meadow full of flowers. It's just huge

923
00:51:54,120 --> 00:51:57,480
Speaker 3: mass of flowers, millions of flowers, all in bloom in

924
00:51:57,560 --> 00:52:02,879
Speaker 3: spring colors, yellow, white, pink and violet, and this mysterious

925
00:52:02,960 --> 00:52:06,239
Speaker 3: music swells and then we can see the boy from behind.

926
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:09,200
Speaker 3: This is probably the most iconic shot from the film.

927
00:52:09,600 --> 00:52:12,920
Speaker 3: The boy is now entering a narrow valley framed by

928
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:18,240
Speaker 3: dark mountains, and in the middle ground there's the meadow

929
00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:22,160
Speaker 3: of the spring flowers, and a rainbow bends over the field.

930
00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:25,279
Speaker 3: And this has got to be the most beautiful and

931
00:52:25,400 --> 00:52:28,400
Speaker 3: certainly the most frightening use of a rainbow in a

932
00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:30,560
Speaker 3: film that I can think of, because it's a rainbow

933
00:52:30,560 --> 00:52:34,440
Speaker 3: that's obviously not just a disconnected vision that is pretty

934
00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:37,480
Speaker 3: to look at, as rainbows are often in movies. This

935
00:52:37,640 --> 00:52:41,360
Speaker 3: is a place, and it is the spectral castle of

936
00:52:41,400 --> 00:52:46,040
Speaker 3: the vengeful Fox Spirits, and the boy stands there facing

937
00:52:46,080 --> 00:52:49,400
Speaker 3: the rainbow. He's clutching the knife. He is amazed and afraid,

938
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:52,680
Speaker 3: and he begins again to walk to its center, and

939
00:52:52,719 --> 00:52:55,719
Speaker 3: the music is swelling up with these ominous notes on

940
00:52:55,719 --> 00:53:00,440
Speaker 3: the woodwinds and then fade to black yeah the end,

941
00:53:00,640 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 3: so we never see him face the Fox Spirits. In

942
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:07,600
Speaker 3: the true essence of a dream, These vignettes often begin

943
00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:09,640
Speaker 3: in the middle of the action or begin with a

944
00:53:09,719 --> 00:53:13,600
Speaker 3: kind of unexplained arrival, and they often stop right in

945
00:53:13,680 --> 00:53:16,080
Speaker 3: the middle of the story as well, usually right as

946
00:53:16,120 --> 00:53:18,320
Speaker 3: the tension is kind of rising to its peak.

947
00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:21,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's the way it often is in dreams.

948
00:53:21,120 --> 00:53:23,319
Speaker 1: How how many times have any of you ever had

949
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 1: a dream that finished had a third act? You know?

950
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:28,799
Speaker 1: Sometimes I guess that's the case, but generally it's like

951
00:53:28,840 --> 00:53:32,480
Speaker 1: things kind of peter out or shift. And yeah, I agree,

952
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 1: very strong opening segment here. I agree on the danger

953
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:39,520
Speaker 1: and seriousness of children's dreams displayed here, and it seems

954
00:53:39,520 --> 00:53:41,520
Speaker 1: a fitting way too, to look at the way that

955
00:53:41,640 --> 00:53:47,040
Speaker 1: children are eventually thrust, maybe without warning, into you know,

956
00:53:47,080 --> 00:53:49,600
Speaker 1: out of their lives of protected curiosity, and into a

957
00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:53,360
Speaker 1: more serious world of reality. Though of course in this

958
00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:57,880
Speaker 1: case it's not quite reality. It's a supernatural threat. But

959
00:53:57,920 --> 00:54:01,320
Speaker 1: still it's like his world of just sort of play

960
00:54:01,440 --> 00:54:06,920
Speaker 1: and curiosity has suddenly taken this sharp turn into a

961
00:54:07,120 --> 00:54:09,080
Speaker 1: into threatening confines. Yeah.

962
00:54:09,120 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 3: I agree with all that, and I just love so

963
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:14,160
Speaker 3: many things about this opening, the way it captures this

964
00:54:14,280 --> 00:54:18,520
Speaker 3: authentic feeling of a child's imagination and dream world, the

965
00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:22,480
Speaker 3: way that there is a thin line between beauty and

966
00:54:22,560 --> 00:54:26,640
Speaker 3: amazement and absolute horror, and that the way the story

967
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:28,880
Speaker 3: can just shift back and forth between the two or

968
00:54:28,960 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 3: kind of capture them both at the same time, especially

969
00:54:31,600 --> 00:54:32,840
Speaker 3: with the image of the rainbow.

970
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:35,919
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, and again you have such an ominous use

971
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:41,719
Speaker 1: of the rainbow here. This rainbow gait into and into

972
00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:44,080
Speaker 1: to a certain degree of more adult world.

973
00:54:44,719 --> 00:54:46,640
Speaker 3: Okay, do you want to look at the peach orchard

974
00:54:46,680 --> 00:54:47,840
Speaker 3: the next one in order?

975
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:48,359
Speaker 1: Yeah?

976
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:50,840
Speaker 3: So this one also begins with a young boy in

977
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:52,560
Speaker 3: a house a little bit older than the boy in

978
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:56,600
Speaker 3: the previous dream, and it starts with him taking a

979
00:54:56,640 --> 00:54:59,440
Speaker 3: tray of cakes to his big sister and her friends.

980
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:05,040
Speaker 3: And this episode takes place on Hina Matsuri or Dolls Day,

981
00:55:05,080 --> 00:55:07,760
Speaker 3: also known as Girls' Day. I didn't know anything about

982
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:09,719
Speaker 3: this beforehand, so I had to look it up. But

983
00:55:09,840 --> 00:55:13,080
Speaker 3: this is a festival celebrated at the transition from winter

984
00:55:13,160 --> 00:55:15,640
Speaker 3: to spring. I think these days it's often on March third,

985
00:55:16,280 --> 00:55:19,920
Speaker 3: where families pray for the well being of their daughters.

986
00:55:19,960 --> 00:55:22,120
Speaker 3: It's sort of a health and well being of our

987
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:26,360
Speaker 3: daughter's day. And the festival includes the display of dolls

988
00:55:26,400 --> 00:55:29,759
Speaker 3: known as Hena Nino or Hena dolls, which are styled

989
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:34,279
Speaker 3: after the Imperial Court of the Hayan period. So the protagonist,

990
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:36,319
Speaker 3: the boy, he brings a tray of goodies to his

991
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:39,200
Speaker 3: older sister who is with her friends, and they're in

992
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:42,640
Speaker 3: a room with a tiered display of Heena dolls in

993
00:55:42,680 --> 00:55:45,239
Speaker 3: the background, and the boy stops to look at the

994
00:55:45,280 --> 00:55:48,799
Speaker 3: dolls and there's kind of a strangeness music sting that

995
00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:53,680
Speaker 3: indicates something is a little striking or unusual, and then

996
00:55:53,719 --> 00:55:56,360
Speaker 3: he realizes that he brought more food to his sister

997
00:55:56,400 --> 00:55:58,680
Speaker 3: and her friends than is needed. He thought that she

998
00:55:58,880 --> 00:56:01,160
Speaker 3: had five friends with her, but there are only four

999
00:56:01,200 --> 00:56:05,200
Speaker 3: friends there now, and he insists that he saw another

1000
00:56:05,239 --> 00:56:07,680
Speaker 3: girl with them earlier, but the sister tells him no,

1001
00:56:07,840 --> 00:56:10,200
Speaker 3: there were no other girls here. He is being strange,

1002
00:56:10,840 --> 00:56:13,960
Speaker 3: But then he sees the girl again. The other girl

1003
00:56:14,000 --> 00:56:16,920
Speaker 3: is dressed in pink and white and she's watching him

1004
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:19,480
Speaker 3: from the hallway, but she disappears when he tries to

1005
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:21,600
Speaker 3: get his sister to look and see the other girl.

1006
00:56:21,960 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 1: This is already a little creepy.

1007
00:56:23,440 --> 00:56:27,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, So he follows the girl in pink out

1008
00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:31,080
Speaker 3: through the back door, out into the bamboo forest all

1009
00:56:31,120 --> 00:56:35,000
Speaker 3: the way to a green hillside with tiered terraces much

1010
00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:38,120
Speaker 3: like the tiered display with the Hena dolls in the house,

1011
00:56:38,640 --> 00:56:42,120
Speaker 3: and the hill is covered in soft grass, and when

1012
00:56:42,120 --> 00:56:44,680
Speaker 3: he arrives at the hillside, he's sort of ambushed by

1013
00:56:44,680 --> 00:56:46,680
Speaker 3: a mass of people. They all come running out on

1014
00:56:46,719 --> 00:56:50,400
Speaker 3: the terraces, and they are dressed up like the Hena dolls,

1015
00:56:50,560 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 3: but in life size, and I think there's sort of

1016
00:56:53,680 --> 00:56:56,040
Speaker 3: an Emperor doll man the leader of them all. He

1017
00:56:56,440 --> 00:56:59,600
Speaker 3: addresses the boy sternly, and he says that they will

1018
00:56:59,640 --> 00:57:03,480
Speaker 3: never returned to his house again because his family cut

1019
00:57:03,560 --> 00:57:06,000
Speaker 3: down the peach orchard that used to be on this hill.

1020
00:57:06,920 --> 00:57:09,120
Speaker 3: And he explains that they are the spirits of the

1021
00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:12,360
Speaker 3: peach trees, which are celebrated on the Dolls Day festival.

1022
00:57:12,920 --> 00:57:16,280
Speaker 3: And there seems to be kind of an implication that

1023
00:57:16,520 --> 00:57:20,880
Speaker 3: because of the family's treachery, they will also withhold their.

1024
00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:22,240
Speaker 4: Blessings from the family.

1025
00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:26,120
Speaker 3: And the boy begins to cry, and the Emperor yells

1026
00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:28,120
Speaker 3: at him. He tells him it's too late for tears.

1027
00:57:28,520 --> 00:57:32,160
Speaker 3: But then the Queen Doll remembers something. She says, this

1028
00:57:32,200 --> 00:57:35,120
Speaker 3: is the same boy who cried for the trees when

1029
00:57:35,120 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 3: they were being cut down. They say they remember he

1030
00:57:37,680 --> 00:57:39,960
Speaker 3: even pleaded with his family not to do it, not

1031
00:57:40,040 --> 00:57:42,800
Speaker 3: to cut down the orchard, and the emperor at first

1032
00:57:42,800 --> 00:57:45,160
Speaker 3: he scoffs at this. He says that was only because

1033
00:57:45,200 --> 00:57:47,360
Speaker 3: the boy knew he would stop getting peaches to eat,

1034
00:57:47,400 --> 00:57:49,720
Speaker 3: and all of the members of the court laugh at him,

1035
00:57:50,560 --> 00:57:51,959
Speaker 3: but the boy protests.

1036
00:57:52,040 --> 00:57:52,720
Speaker 4: He says no.

1037
00:57:52,840 --> 00:57:55,000
Speaker 3: He says, you can buy peaches at the store, but

1038
00:57:55,040 --> 00:57:57,880
Speaker 3: where can you buy a whole orchard of trees in bloom.

1039
00:57:58,360 --> 00:58:00,880
Speaker 3: He says he was crying because he loves the trees

1040
00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:04,200
Speaker 3: at themselves as living things, and then he starts to

1041
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:07,480
Speaker 3: cry again, and then the dull people seem sort of ashamed.

1042
00:58:07,520 --> 00:58:09,360
Speaker 3: You can see them sort of looking at their feet

1043
00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:14,120
Speaker 3: and hanging their heads. And the emperor accepts the boy's explanation.

1044
00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:16,240
Speaker 3: He says he's a good boy and that he will

1045
00:58:16,240 --> 00:58:19,360
Speaker 3: be allowed to see the orchard in bloom one last time.

1046
00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:22,920
Speaker 3: And then there's a dance with all of the figures

1047
00:58:23,080 --> 00:58:27,160
Speaker 3: taking place on the terraces, and they perform these choreographed

1048
00:58:27,200 --> 00:58:30,960
Speaker 3: movements to symbolize the flowering of the trees. And then

1049
00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:32,840
Speaker 3: at the end of the dance, the boy sees the

1050
00:58:32,880 --> 00:58:36,840
Speaker 3: peach trees blossoming again, and there are petals falling everywhere.

1051
00:58:36,920 --> 00:58:39,720
Speaker 3: He also sees the girl in pink and he tries

1052
00:58:39,760 --> 00:58:42,560
Speaker 3: to run after her, but suddenly he's back in the

1053
00:58:42,600 --> 00:58:44,840
Speaker 3: real world and all the trees are chopped down. Now

1054
00:58:44,880 --> 00:58:48,920
Speaker 3: they're just bare stumps, all except one. There's one tree

1055
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:52,200
Speaker 3: that has a limb covered in flowers, kind of bouncing

1056
00:58:52,200 --> 00:58:54,680
Speaker 3: in the wind, and he goes over to it and

1057
00:58:54,720 --> 00:58:59,640
Speaker 3: he looks at it, and the end, what was going

1058
00:58:59,680 --> 00:59:01,680
Speaker 3: to happen next we don't get to see.

1059
00:59:01,960 --> 00:59:03,760
Speaker 1: This is also a strong segment. I mean, like they're

1060
00:59:03,760 --> 00:59:06,080
Speaker 1: all strong. It's not like there's a weak one in

1061
00:59:06,160 --> 00:59:10,920
Speaker 1: the bunch. This one maybe hit me, I think is

1062
00:59:10,920 --> 00:59:14,400
Speaker 1: weirder just because I wasn't familiar with the traditions, and

1063
00:59:14,520 --> 00:59:16,520
Speaker 1: also I think my fever might have been spiking a

1064
00:59:16,560 --> 00:59:20,800
Speaker 1: little bit during the sequence as well. But yeah, I

1065
00:59:20,840 --> 00:59:24,640
Speaker 1: also really loved this one. Similar in some ways in

1066
00:59:24,680 --> 00:59:26,120
Speaker 1: theme to the first Sega segment.

1067
00:59:26,400 --> 00:59:29,280
Speaker 3: I thought this one was interesting because the Peach spirits

1068
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:34,880
Speaker 3: themselves seem to abide by a kind of child's internal logic,

1069
00:59:35,080 --> 00:59:37,920
Speaker 3: the way that they they think that he's actually a

1070
00:59:37,960 --> 00:59:41,960
Speaker 3: good boy because he cried because of the trees themselves

1071
00:59:42,000 --> 00:59:45,440
Speaker 3: and not because of just wanting to eat peaches. I

1072
00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:47,560
Speaker 3: don't know that just feels like such a like a

1073
00:59:47,640 --> 00:59:49,480
Speaker 3: kid's way of thinking about this thing.

1074
00:59:49,800 --> 00:59:59,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right.

1075
00:59:59,040 --> 01:00:00,960
Speaker 3: The next segment is the Blizzard. I think we can

1076
01:00:01,000 --> 01:00:03,920
Speaker 3: be a little bit more cursory and talking about this one. Basically,

1077
01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:06,800
Speaker 3: it is four mountain climbers who are going up this mountain.

1078
01:00:07,120 --> 01:00:09,959
Speaker 3: They get hit by this blizzard. They're struggling in the snow.

1079
01:00:10,040 --> 01:00:12,240
Speaker 3: We see for a long time just them fighting against

1080
01:00:12,280 --> 01:00:14,720
Speaker 3: the wind and the snow, trying to make their way uphill,

1081
01:00:15,480 --> 01:00:17,480
Speaker 3: but it is and they're trying to make the way

1082
01:00:17,520 --> 01:00:19,520
Speaker 3: to camp, but they can't see which way they're going.

1083
01:00:19,560 --> 01:00:22,680
Speaker 3: There's disagreement about whether they're on the right track, and

1084
01:00:22,760 --> 01:00:26,200
Speaker 3: eventually they begin to sort of get snowed in. They

1085
01:00:26,480 --> 01:00:28,560
Speaker 3: succumb to the snow and they're being covered up and

1086
01:00:28,600 --> 01:00:31,160
Speaker 3: they're freezing, and they sort of settle down, and there's

1087
01:00:31,200 --> 01:00:33,720
Speaker 3: the implication that if they do this and they don't

1088
01:00:33,760 --> 01:00:36,640
Speaker 3: reach camp, they're going to die. And then we see

1089
01:00:36,640 --> 01:00:40,160
Speaker 3: things from the perspective of the lead climber. It's sort

1090
01:00:40,160 --> 01:00:41,800
Speaker 3: of the leader of all of them, who's been trying

1091
01:00:41,840 --> 01:00:46,000
Speaker 3: to rally his friends to keep going. We see a

1092
01:00:46,040 --> 01:00:49,360
Speaker 3: figure begins to sort of put blankets over him. These

1093
01:00:49,400 --> 01:00:53,240
Speaker 3: shimmering blankets and shawls that go over his body like

1094
01:00:53,360 --> 01:00:57,439
Speaker 3: layers of snow. And this is from what I've read,

1095
01:00:57,480 --> 01:00:59,920
Speaker 3: this is supposed to be a traditional figure from Jack

1096
01:01:00,000 --> 01:01:02,960
Speaker 3: and He's folklore known as the yuki onna, which might

1097
01:01:02,960 --> 01:01:06,480
Speaker 3: be like the snow princess or snow fairy, snow witch,

1098
01:01:06,600 --> 01:01:10,200
Speaker 3: something like that, the snow spirit, who I think is

1099
01:01:10,280 --> 01:01:14,000
Speaker 3: often threatening in nature, and here she's ambiguous at first,

1100
01:01:14,080 --> 01:01:16,600
Speaker 3: but then I think by the end we can learn

1101
01:01:16,640 --> 01:01:18,400
Speaker 3: as definitely a threatening figure.

1102
01:01:18,720 --> 01:01:21,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, my understanding is that it does kind of vary.

1103
01:01:22,400 --> 01:01:28,280
Speaker 1: So Yukiona is a pretty famous yokai, generally regarded as

1104
01:01:28,280 --> 01:01:33,440
Speaker 1: a yokai because she's often more of a personification of

1105
01:01:33,480 --> 01:01:36,880
Speaker 1: the snow or of blizzards, though some tellings depict her

1106
01:01:37,000 --> 01:01:39,160
Speaker 1: as more of a yuri or a ghost that of

1107
01:01:39,200 --> 01:01:42,360
Speaker 1: a woman who died in the snow, as Heroko, Yoda

1108
01:01:42,440 --> 01:01:45,280
Speaker 1: and Matt All discussed in the book Yokai Attack. There

1109
01:01:45,360 --> 01:01:47,480
Speaker 1: is many different versions of this tale, as there are

1110
01:01:47,560 --> 01:01:51,160
Speaker 1: mountains in Japan. The tale of the Yukiyona was famously

1111
01:01:51,200 --> 01:01:55,000
Speaker 1: adapted in the nineteen sixty five film Kaitan, which we

1112
01:01:55,080 --> 01:01:59,400
Speaker 1: might come back to the core stories involve her sparing

1113
01:01:59,440 --> 01:02:02,920
Speaker 1: a handsome young man during a blizzard like after like

1114
01:02:03,040 --> 01:02:08,760
Speaker 1: brutally killing his compatriots with winter powers, but then sparing

1115
01:02:08,880 --> 01:02:12,520
Speaker 1: him on the condition that he never tell anyone about this,

1116
01:02:13,240 --> 01:02:16,120
Speaker 1: and so the young man survives, and then, as luck

1117
01:02:16,120 --> 01:02:17,840
Speaker 1: would have it, he meets a beautiful young woman the

1118
01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:20,040
Speaker 1: next day. The two fall in love, they're married, they

1119
01:02:20,080 --> 01:02:23,880
Speaker 1: eventually have children. And yet the whole time, this need

1120
01:02:23,880 --> 01:02:25,920
Speaker 1: to tell the story of the woman in the snow

1121
01:02:26,000 --> 01:02:30,400
Speaker 1: steadily builds up inside him, until one day he breaks

1122
01:02:30,560 --> 01:02:33,960
Speaker 1: and he tells his wife about what happened in the

1123
01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:37,280
Speaker 1: snow that day. And I don't want to spoil anything

1124
01:02:37,320 --> 01:02:41,800
Speaker 1: because it's pretty pretty amazing, but essentially we see the

1125
01:02:41,880 --> 01:02:44,960
Speaker 1: ramifications of him breaking his promise to the Yukiono.

1126
01:02:45,600 --> 01:02:49,000
Speaker 3: Well, the yukiona in this segment is is quite scary,

1127
01:02:49,040 --> 01:02:54,840
Speaker 3: and eventually though the climber does sort of overcome her influence.

1128
01:02:54,840 --> 01:02:56,960
Speaker 3: She's sort of lulling him to sleep in the snow,

1129
01:02:57,640 --> 01:03:01,040
Speaker 3: and there's one moment when she is sort of defeated

1130
01:03:01,160 --> 01:03:03,840
Speaker 3: or blown away. She like turns into some kind of

1131
01:03:03,880 --> 01:03:07,200
Speaker 3: white cloth, It's like a white piece of clothing or

1132
01:03:07,240 --> 01:03:09,840
Speaker 3: flag or something, and just like blows away in the wind.

1133
01:03:11,640 --> 01:03:14,600
Speaker 3: But then the man wakes up after the blizzard is gone,

1134
01:03:14,600 --> 01:03:18,000
Speaker 3: and he sort of tries to he revives his compatriots.

1135
01:03:18,040 --> 01:03:21,120
Speaker 3: I think they're all still alive, and he sort of

1136
01:03:21,120 --> 01:03:22,960
Speaker 3: shakes them, tries to get them to wake up, and

1137
01:03:23,000 --> 01:03:25,240
Speaker 3: then they realize their camp is like right there, they're

1138
01:03:25,280 --> 01:03:27,800
Speaker 3: right beside it, and they didn't know because of the storm.

1139
01:03:28,840 --> 01:03:32,320
Speaker 3: A lot of reviewers flag this, I at least from

1140
01:03:32,360 --> 01:03:34,880
Speaker 3: what I've seen online, as their least favorite segment. I

1141
01:03:34,960 --> 01:03:38,320
Speaker 3: think primarily because of how slow and monotonous parts of

1142
01:03:38,360 --> 01:03:41,240
Speaker 3: it are. Like it is very dreamlike in that respect,

1143
01:03:41,400 --> 01:03:43,720
Speaker 3: especially in the first half of them just fighting through

1144
01:03:43,760 --> 01:03:45,880
Speaker 3: the snow and the wind is blowing.

1145
01:03:46,680 --> 01:03:47,760
Speaker 4: But I don't know.

1146
01:03:48,000 --> 01:03:50,080
Speaker 3: I like this segment, and I really like the part

1147
01:03:50,080 --> 01:03:53,280
Speaker 3: where the snow witch speaks. You know, when the snow

1148
01:03:53,320 --> 01:03:55,880
Speaker 3: witch comes up over him while he's lying down. She's

1149
01:03:55,920 --> 01:03:58,400
Speaker 3: putting the shawls over him, and there's some kind of

1150
01:03:58,440 --> 01:04:01,040
Speaker 3: modulation on her voice, like it's doubled or something, so

1151
01:04:01,080 --> 01:04:04,000
Speaker 3: it sounds very strange. And you hear her saying the

1152
01:04:04,040 --> 01:04:06,480
Speaker 3: snow is warm is so frightening.

1153
01:04:07,000 --> 01:04:10,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And my understanding is that that this it's

1154
01:04:10,040 --> 01:04:13,520
Speaker 1: sort of like the general vibes of the Yukiona. It's

1155
01:04:13,600 --> 01:04:18,240
Speaker 1: kind of a take on hypothermia and the idea of

1156
01:04:18,280 --> 01:04:22,200
Speaker 1: like giving in to death in the cold snow Zaiah,

1157
01:04:22,200 --> 01:04:23,280
Speaker 1: it's pretty creepy stuff.

1158
01:04:23,600 --> 01:04:27,960
Speaker 3: The snow is warm, okay. Next segment is the Tunnel.

1159
01:04:28,920 --> 01:04:31,840
Speaker 3: As we explained, this one begins with a military officer

1160
01:04:31,920 --> 01:04:34,640
Speaker 3: walking by himself on an empty road that cuts through

1161
01:04:34,680 --> 01:04:37,560
Speaker 3: the mountains. We somehow understand I think that he is

1162
01:04:37,600 --> 01:04:40,560
Speaker 3: coming home from war. I would guess by his uniform

1163
01:04:40,640 --> 01:04:44,000
Speaker 3: that it's World War two, and he seems weary and

1164
01:04:44,080 --> 01:04:46,640
Speaker 3: beaten down, but he's still kind of clutching a sense

1165
01:04:46,680 --> 01:04:50,680
Speaker 3: of formal dignity, has a kind of headheld high aspect

1166
01:04:50,720 --> 01:04:54,520
Speaker 3: that some of the other characters and protagonists here wouldn't

1167
01:04:54,520 --> 01:04:57,480
Speaker 3: necessarily have. And as he comes up the road, he

1168
01:04:57,640 --> 01:05:01,439
Speaker 3: faces the entrance to a tunnel. It's hard to say

1169
01:05:01,480 --> 01:05:04,640
Speaker 3: exactly why, but there is something really just cursed and

1170
01:05:04,760 --> 01:05:07,760
Speaker 3: ominous about this tunnel. I don't think it's a set

1171
01:05:07,800 --> 01:05:09,960
Speaker 3: made for the film. It looks like it's probably just

1172
01:05:10,000 --> 01:05:11,720
Speaker 3: a real concrete tunnel somewhere.

1173
01:05:12,000 --> 01:05:15,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, but what a location. It's amazing, like just against

1174
01:05:15,360 --> 01:05:18,520
Speaker 1: so ominous, and you know it reads on so many levels,

1175
01:05:18,520 --> 01:05:21,200
Speaker 1: like like, what is this? Is it a gateway to

1176
01:05:21,320 --> 01:05:25,560
Speaker 1: the underworld? It is nothing else, literally a gateway through

1177
01:05:25,600 --> 01:05:28,520
Speaker 1: the mountain. Yeah, so many ways to take it apart.

1178
01:05:28,760 --> 01:05:29,680
Speaker 4: Don't go in there.

1179
01:05:30,400 --> 01:05:33,480
Speaker 3: But then from inside he hears howling and whimpering, the

1180
01:05:33,560 --> 01:05:36,240
Speaker 3: sounds of a dog, and then a dog runs out

1181
01:05:36,280 --> 01:05:38,720
Speaker 3: of the tunnel. And this is, from what I've read,

1182
01:05:38,760 --> 01:05:42,720
Speaker 3: supposed to be an anti tank dog. So it is

1183
01:05:42,760 --> 01:05:47,720
Speaker 3: a dog strapped with timed explosives, which was explored.

1184
01:05:47,280 --> 01:05:48,760
Speaker 4: And there were many of.

1185
01:05:48,680 --> 01:05:51,320
Speaker 3: These trained as a weapon by multiple armies in World

1186
01:05:51,320 --> 01:05:54,280
Speaker 3: War Two. I'm not sure how much they were actually

1187
01:05:54,400 --> 01:05:57,600
Speaker 3: used in combat, but they were at least trained. So

1188
01:05:57,760 --> 01:05:59,440
Speaker 3: in this case, it is a dog with a kind

1189
01:05:59,480 --> 01:06:01,960
Speaker 3: of saddle on its back, covered in pockets, and the

1190
01:06:02,000 --> 01:06:05,960
Speaker 3: pockets are stuffed with grenades. It is a bleak and

1191
01:06:06,080 --> 01:06:07,280
Speaker 3: horrifying image.

1192
01:06:07,640 --> 01:06:10,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, and certainly fits with some of the themes explored

1193
01:06:10,360 --> 01:06:14,920
Speaker 1: in the picture about humanity's relationship to nature. Here a

1194
01:06:14,960 --> 01:06:19,320
Speaker 1: great example of nature being twisted beyond mere domestication into

1195
01:06:19,360 --> 01:06:21,520
Speaker 1: actual weaponization. Pretty horrific.

1196
01:06:21,920 --> 01:06:24,880
Speaker 3: So the dog approaches the officer and snarls at him,

1197
01:06:24,880 --> 01:06:27,880
Speaker 3: but does not attack, and then the officer walks on

1198
01:06:28,000 --> 01:06:30,919
Speaker 3: into the tunnel, which is cavernous and echoing. We see

1199
01:06:30,920 --> 01:06:34,640
Speaker 3: these tracking, these moving shots going through the tunnel, just

1200
01:06:34,680 --> 01:06:36,800
Speaker 3: looking up at the ceiling of the tunnel as kind

1201
01:06:36,840 --> 01:06:41,040
Speaker 3: of light plays on it as he's walking along, and

1202
01:06:41,160 --> 01:06:44,720
Speaker 3: we can see the officer's breath, We hear his boots

1203
01:06:44,840 --> 01:06:47,520
Speaker 3: kind of clapping and reverberating as he makes his way

1204
01:06:47,880 --> 01:06:50,680
Speaker 3: down to the other end. And then we see at

1205
01:06:50,440 --> 01:06:53,680
Speaker 3: the emerging side of the tunnel the sky is dark

1206
01:06:53,840 --> 01:06:57,080
Speaker 3: blue and illuminated by a red lamp, which I thought

1207
01:06:57,120 --> 01:06:59,360
Speaker 3: was interesting. Kind of reminds me of that Charles Dickens

1208
01:06:59,400 --> 01:07:02,840
Speaker 3: Gohes story he talked about last October, the signalman with

1209
01:07:03,040 --> 01:07:05,760
Speaker 3: the ghost or the premonition appearing by the red light

1210
01:07:05,840 --> 01:07:08,600
Speaker 3: at the end of the rail tunnel. And so after

1211
01:07:08,640 --> 01:07:11,919
Speaker 3: the commander comes out the other end of the passage,

1212
01:07:12,000 --> 01:07:16,720
Speaker 3: he stops because he hears steps behind him. Who's that

1213
01:07:17,520 --> 01:07:20,240
Speaker 3: He turns around to see and it is a ghost.

1214
01:07:20,600 --> 01:07:21,240
Speaker 1: It is a.

1215
01:07:21,120 --> 01:07:25,320
Speaker 3: Soldier in combat uniform with rifle and helmet and his

1216
01:07:25,440 --> 01:07:31,200
Speaker 3: skin painted blue, the blue fleshed being who should not

1217
01:07:31,400 --> 01:07:34,479
Speaker 3: be and the commander recognizes him. This is someone known

1218
01:07:34,560 --> 01:07:39,360
Speaker 3: to the protagonist. This is Private Noguchi but Private Noguchi

1219
01:07:39,640 --> 01:07:44,200
Speaker 3: was killed in action, and Noguchi is confused. He believes

1220
01:07:44,480 --> 01:07:48,720
Speaker 3: maybe he is still alive. He remembers going home after

1221
01:07:48,800 --> 01:07:51,600
Speaker 3: the war and being given rice cakes by his mother,

1222
01:07:52,360 --> 01:07:55,040
Speaker 3: remembers being comforted by his mother, but the commander has

1223
01:07:55,120 --> 01:07:58,640
Speaker 3: to explain to him, No, that was a dream you had.

1224
01:07:58,840 --> 01:08:01,480
Speaker 3: This is a dream about you know, the dreams of others.

1225
01:08:01,760 --> 01:08:04,120
Speaker 3: That was a dream you had. You were shot in

1226
01:08:04,240 --> 01:08:07,280
Speaker 3: battle and you passed out, and you woke up, and

1227
01:08:07,320 --> 01:08:09,480
Speaker 3: you told me you had that dream where you went

1228
01:08:09,520 --> 01:08:11,760
Speaker 3: home and saw your mother and she gave you rice cakes.

1229
01:08:12,120 --> 01:08:14,400
Speaker 3: Then you died in my arms a few minutes later,

1230
01:08:15,000 --> 01:08:18,400
Speaker 3: and Nogucci is so confused. He's he points out a

1231
01:08:18,479 --> 01:08:21,360
Speaker 3: light in the mountains beyond and he says, that's that's

1232
01:08:21,400 --> 01:08:24,360
Speaker 3: my parents' home, that house right there where the light is.

1233
01:08:25,200 --> 01:08:26,720
Speaker 4: But the commander argues with him.

1234
01:08:26,720 --> 01:08:28,960
Speaker 3: He tells him that he hass to accept that he

1235
01:08:29,040 --> 01:08:31,479
Speaker 3: is dead, uh, and he has to go to his

1236
01:08:31,600 --> 01:08:34,400
Speaker 3: rest and he eventually the ghost seems to give in.

1237
01:08:34,880 --> 01:08:37,759
Speaker 3: He turns about face and he walks back into the tunnel.

1238
01:08:38,320 --> 01:08:42,519
Speaker 3: But it's not over because then here comes everyone the

1239
01:08:42,720 --> 01:08:47,160
Speaker 3: entire company who served under this commander. And they come

1240
01:08:47,360 --> 01:08:50,479
Speaker 3: marching out of the tunnel information they're you know, they're

1241
01:08:50,520 --> 01:08:54,240
Speaker 3: like calling out drill instructions. They call him marching, and

1242
01:08:54,280 --> 01:08:58,599
Speaker 3: they stand in order in front of him. And here

1243
01:08:58,680 --> 01:09:02,160
Speaker 3: there's a confrontation where all the commander has to accept

1244
01:09:02,160 --> 01:09:06,800
Speaker 3: his responsibility for their death in battle, where he says

1245
01:09:06,880 --> 01:09:10,320
Speaker 3: he would like to blame the stupidity of war for

1246
01:09:10,400 --> 01:09:13,040
Speaker 3: the deaths of his men, but he knows in his

1247
01:09:13,120 --> 01:09:16,360
Speaker 3: heart that he bears personal responsibility for sending them into

1248
01:09:16,400 --> 01:09:19,519
Speaker 3: certain doom because it was a feudal attempt, but he

1249
01:09:20,240 --> 01:09:22,960
Speaker 3: sent them into battle anyway. And I feel like this

1250
01:09:23,720 --> 01:09:26,759
Speaker 3: moment highlights a theme that I think appears in multiple

1251
01:09:26,800 --> 01:09:31,640
Speaker 3: segments of this movie, which is the theme of individual

1252
01:09:31,680 --> 01:09:36,760
Speaker 3: responsibility versus a kind of collective blame or stupidity. Specifically,

1253
01:09:36,840 --> 01:09:40,599
Speaker 3: like there's a theme of the inadequacy of placing blame

1254
01:09:40,680 --> 01:09:46,640
Speaker 3: for tragedies on abstract, impersonal forces or diffuse collectives. So

1255
01:09:46,720 --> 01:09:49,120
Speaker 3: there's the case here, But then the same thing happens

1256
01:09:49,160 --> 01:09:52,280
Speaker 3: in the next segment in Mount Fujian Red where or

1257
01:09:52,320 --> 01:09:56,479
Speaker 3: actually two segments later, where there's like a bureaucratic man

1258
01:09:56,520 --> 01:10:00,559
Speaker 3: in a suit and glasses who kind of contrast a

1259
01:10:00,640 --> 01:10:04,599
Speaker 3: force of impersonal stupidity and arrogance that allowed the nuclear

1260
01:10:04,640 --> 01:10:07,960
Speaker 3: meltdown in that segment to occur. But then he acknowledges

1261
01:10:08,040 --> 01:10:10,840
Speaker 3: that he is personally to blame somehow, though he doesn't

1262
01:10:10,880 --> 01:10:13,439
Speaker 3: explain how. And this seems to be something that's on

1263
01:10:13,560 --> 01:10:16,080
Speaker 3: the Dreamer's mind. It's one of these themes that comes

1264
01:10:16,160 --> 01:10:17,559
Speaker 3: up in multiple cases.

1265
01:10:18,479 --> 01:10:23,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I want to also flag he hear that

1266
01:10:23,320 --> 01:10:28,400
Speaker 1: the makeup for the soldiers the ghosts here is really

1267
01:10:28,479 --> 01:10:30,800
Speaker 1: really well done, is it is? Again, you get a

1268
01:10:30,840 --> 01:10:35,680
Speaker 1: sense of Corosawa pulling back from anything too monstrous, Like

1269
01:10:36,040 --> 01:10:39,720
Speaker 1: these are not like, this is not zombie makeup or

1270
01:10:39,760 --> 01:10:42,040
Speaker 1: what you might think of a zombie makeup. It really

1271
01:10:42,240 --> 01:10:44,880
Speaker 1: but it's also not like straight up kobuki makeup either.

1272
01:10:44,920 --> 01:10:48,519
Speaker 1: It's kind of like somewhere in this perfect place between

1273
01:10:48,600 --> 01:10:51,320
Speaker 1: kabuki makeup and like just a corpse like.

1274
01:10:51,280 --> 01:10:55,120
Speaker 3: Pallor Yeah, the blueness of their makeup is so interesting

1275
01:10:55,120 --> 01:10:58,320
Speaker 3: as a color choice. It doesn't exactly suggest rot. It

1276
01:10:58,560 --> 01:11:02,639
Speaker 3: suggests a kind of changedness and like become a different

1277
01:11:02,760 --> 01:11:03,439
Speaker 3: kind of being.

1278
01:11:04,080 --> 01:11:04,880
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1279
01:11:04,920 --> 01:11:09,440
Speaker 3: But anyway, so the commander accepts his responsibility and he

1280
01:11:09,960 --> 01:11:12,200
Speaker 3: orders his men to turn about face and to march

1281
01:11:12,240 --> 01:11:15,519
Speaker 3: back into the tunnel to essentially accept their destruction and

1282
01:11:15,640 --> 01:11:19,800
Speaker 3: go into death, go into their rest. And then you

1283
01:11:19,880 --> 01:11:22,559
Speaker 3: might think the encounter is over, but there is another

1284
01:11:22,680 --> 01:11:25,320
Speaker 3: escalation because we get the return of the dog. So

1285
01:11:25,439 --> 01:11:28,679
Speaker 3: the anti tank dog runs back out again and begins

1286
01:11:28,800 --> 01:11:32,719
Speaker 3: it starts snarling and menacing the officer, and once again

1287
01:11:32,760 --> 01:11:35,400
Speaker 3: it just ends at this moment of heightened menace where

1288
01:11:35,439 --> 01:11:37,040
Speaker 3: we don't know how it resolves.

1289
01:11:37,880 --> 01:11:41,840
Speaker 1: Great segment though, really everyone in it is stellar, just

1290
01:11:41,880 --> 01:11:44,400
Speaker 1: the I mean everything about it, the way it's framed,

1291
01:11:44,479 --> 01:11:48,040
Speaker 1: the costuming, the location they use, just everything lines up

1292
01:11:48,040 --> 01:11:48,920
Speaker 1: on this one for sure.

1293
01:11:49,680 --> 01:11:53,040
Speaker 3: The next segment is Crows. This is the one that

1294
01:11:53,200 --> 01:11:55,599
Speaker 3: has the paintings of Vincent vng Go. So it begins

1295
01:11:55,600 --> 01:11:59,479
Speaker 3: with the Khorsauer protagonist in a museum looking at Vengo's paintings.

1296
01:11:59,520 --> 01:12:02,880
Speaker 3: He's looking at starry night and one of his self portraits.

1297
01:12:03,560 --> 01:12:06,240
Speaker 1: Then he experiences a little Stendel syndrome and just walks

1298
01:12:06,280 --> 01:12:06,840
Speaker 1: right into that.

1299
01:12:07,439 --> 01:12:10,000
Speaker 3: He goes into the paintings. I think the first one

1300
01:12:10,040 --> 01:12:14,280
Speaker 3: he enters is so Vano did a number of paintings

1301
01:12:14,280 --> 01:12:18,479
Speaker 3: of the bridge at arla ar l E. S if

1302
01:12:18,520 --> 01:12:22,920
Speaker 3: I'm saying that right, Arlas or Arlau And I think

1303
01:12:22,960 --> 01:12:26,400
Speaker 3: the specific one that he appears in is the Langlowy

1304
01:12:26,479 --> 01:12:30,040
Speaker 3: Bridge at Arla with women washing. So that's a painting

1305
01:12:30,080 --> 01:12:31,680
Speaker 3: you can look up if you want. It shows like

1306
01:12:31,720 --> 01:12:35,200
Speaker 3: a bridge with a sort of you know, drawbridge characteristic

1307
01:12:35,400 --> 01:12:37,960
Speaker 3: that can be raised so boats can pass underneath. But

1308
01:12:38,000 --> 01:12:41,479
Speaker 3: there's a carriage, a horse drawn carriage on the wooden

1309
01:12:41,520 --> 01:12:44,160
Speaker 3: part of the bridge, and then down in the foreground

1310
01:12:44,240 --> 01:12:47,720
Speaker 3: there are women washing clothes in the river, and our

1311
01:12:47,760 --> 01:12:50,599
Speaker 3: protagonist just sort of wanders into this scene and it's

1312
01:12:50,680 --> 01:12:53,040
Speaker 3: reproduced in a spectacular way.

1313
01:12:53,080 --> 01:12:56,479
Speaker 4: I love the way that the color qualities.

1314
01:12:56,000 --> 01:12:58,639
Speaker 3: Of the van Go paintings are recreated in the sets

1315
01:12:58,680 --> 01:13:01,720
Speaker 3: and the lighting that that Kusawa puts together here.

1316
01:13:02,200 --> 01:13:04,360
Speaker 1: Yes, agreed, And I also like this is a nice

1317
01:13:04,360 --> 01:13:08,760
Speaker 1: pivot from the more serious, or at least the more

1318
01:13:08,800 --> 01:13:11,400
Speaker 1: dramatic vibes of the last segment.

1319
01:13:11,760 --> 01:13:12,080
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1320
01:13:12,120 --> 01:13:14,640
Speaker 3: So the protagonist here wants to meet ven Go and

1321
01:13:14,720 --> 01:13:17,120
Speaker 3: he wanders around looking for him. He asks the locals

1322
01:13:17,160 --> 01:13:19,920
Speaker 3: where he is. They say he's a madman. But he

1323
01:13:20,080 --> 01:13:24,959
Speaker 3: finds vn Go in a wheat field painting or observing

1324
01:13:25,000 --> 01:13:28,479
Speaker 3: the wheat field and talking about painting. This A major

1325
01:13:29,280 --> 01:13:32,559
Speaker 3: visual theme here is Vengo's painting Wheat Field with Crows,

1326
01:13:32,600 --> 01:13:35,519
Speaker 3: which shows like, you know, these the tall staves of

1327
01:13:35,520 --> 01:13:37,559
Speaker 3: wheed and then the crows flying up out of them

1328
01:13:37,600 --> 01:13:42,080
Speaker 3: into a blue sky. The version we see a van

1329
01:13:42,120 --> 01:13:45,160
Speaker 3: Go portrayed by Martin Scorsese, and this vignette seems to

1330
01:13:45,200 --> 01:13:48,280
Speaker 3: resemble the figure at least as I found in a

1331
01:13:48,360 --> 01:13:52,559
Speaker 3: Vengo painting called Painter on the Road to Tarasan or Terraskn. Again,

1332
01:13:52,600 --> 01:13:54,479
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how to say that, but he's got,

1333
01:13:54,640 --> 01:13:56,639
Speaker 3: you know, a wide straw hat and just a lot

1334
01:13:56,640 --> 01:13:59,439
Speaker 3: of stuff with him. You know, he's got all his

1335
01:13:59,720 --> 01:14:02,080
Speaker 3: gear and his painting and a satchel and all that.

1336
01:14:03,040 --> 01:14:06,639
Speaker 3: The Vango we meet is very distracted, you know, he's

1337
01:14:06,680 --> 01:14:09,679
Speaker 3: never really giving the protagonist his full attention. His attention

1338
01:14:09,880 --> 01:14:12,760
Speaker 3: is on the scene in the landscape, and there's a

1339
01:14:12,760 --> 01:14:15,440
Speaker 3: lot of idea of like, you know, what's really valuable

1340
01:14:15,479 --> 01:14:18,400
Speaker 3: here is this scene and its beauty, and I must

1341
01:14:18,439 --> 01:14:21,639
Speaker 3: consume it and and process it and turn it into

1342
01:14:21,680 --> 01:14:25,080
Speaker 3: something and that's what that's what matters. And I'm sort

1343
01:14:25,120 --> 01:14:27,600
Speaker 3: of halfway giving you enough attention to talk to you,

1344
01:14:27,680 --> 01:14:28,879
Speaker 3: but only about what I'm.

1345
01:14:28,680 --> 01:14:31,400
Speaker 1: Doing, doesn't he This is the part we have a

1346
01:14:31,400 --> 01:14:35,439
Speaker 1: line where old Marty van Go says, why aren't you painting?

1347
01:14:35,479 --> 01:14:37,599
Speaker 1: Like ye got your stud Like what are you doing

1348
01:14:37,640 --> 01:14:40,519
Speaker 1: out here? Like this is this is why we're here,

1349
01:14:40,560 --> 01:14:43,559
Speaker 1: This is the reason we exist. Get to paint.

1350
01:14:43,840 --> 01:14:45,840
Speaker 4: Why are you talking to me? Why aren't you painting?

1351
01:14:45,920 --> 01:14:50,040
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, I think that's a nice little, uh gentle

1352
01:14:50,040 --> 01:14:54,000
Speaker 3: self criticism here from Corusawa. You know that apparently Corsawa

1353
01:14:54,120 --> 01:14:56,880
Speaker 3: was personally very interested in Ango, like he'd read a

1354
01:14:56,880 --> 01:15:00,320
Speaker 3: lot of his letters and stuff and was inter in

1355
01:15:00,360 --> 01:15:02,160
Speaker 3: the man's life as well as his work.

1356
01:15:02,520 --> 01:15:06,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again makes sense given Chrisau was an early

1357
01:15:06,600 --> 01:15:10,640
Speaker 1: interest in a career as a painter before pivoting to

1358
01:15:10,800 --> 01:15:19,720
Speaker 1: a film.

1359
01:15:20,400 --> 01:15:23,320
Speaker 3: Next couple of segments, Mount Fujian Red and The Weeping

1360
01:15:23,360 --> 01:15:27,519
Speaker 3: Demon or sort of the nuclear horror segments. So Mount

1361
01:15:27,560 --> 01:15:30,439
Speaker 3: Fujian Red, as I said, the protagonist just finds himself

1362
01:15:30,439 --> 01:15:32,479
Speaker 3: in the middle of a disaster scene. I think when

1363
01:15:32,520 --> 01:15:35,280
Speaker 3: we first see him, everybody else is running in one

1364
01:15:35,320 --> 01:15:38,120
Speaker 3: direction and he's walking in the opposite direction. He's like

1365
01:15:38,160 --> 01:15:40,120
Speaker 3: the only one and he's going against the flow of

1366
01:15:40,160 --> 01:15:43,559
Speaker 3: the crowd, and he sees Mount Fuji.

1367
01:15:44,320 --> 01:15:45,759
Speaker 4: It looks like hot lava.

1368
01:15:45,800 --> 01:15:48,559
Speaker 3: It's just you know, glowing hot, and there are these

1369
01:15:48,640 --> 01:15:52,640
Speaker 3: explosions and he learns that it's due to a nuclear meltdown,

1370
01:15:53,120 --> 01:15:55,599
Speaker 3: and as we talked about, they have these discussions, a

1371
01:15:55,600 --> 01:15:58,080
Speaker 3: man in a suit appears and he kind of explains things.

1372
01:15:58,160 --> 01:16:02,599
Speaker 3: There's this long digression and about the different colored like

1373
01:16:02,640 --> 01:16:06,919
Speaker 3: the different colors of fog and what radioactive isotopes they represent,

1374
01:16:07,439 --> 01:16:09,800
Speaker 3: and how each one kills you in different ways. And

1375
01:16:09,800 --> 01:16:12,080
Speaker 3: they're like, well, we color coded them so you can

1376
01:16:12,160 --> 01:16:14,600
Speaker 3: know which type of fog is killing you, but it

1377
01:16:14,640 --> 01:16:18,080
Speaker 3: doesn't help you survive. It seems to be some kind

1378
01:16:18,120 --> 01:16:22,360
Speaker 3: of commentary on like the absurdity of like false senses

1379
01:16:22,400 --> 01:16:27,519
Speaker 3: of security provided by technology and that there are these,

1380
01:16:27,760 --> 01:16:30,559
Speaker 3: you know, threats that people just kind of rush into

1381
01:16:30,800 --> 01:16:33,559
Speaker 3: and we're given false assurance that it's going to be okay,

1382
01:16:34,000 --> 01:16:36,640
Speaker 3: but in fact that that was all you know, that

1383
01:16:36,720 --> 01:16:39,240
Speaker 3: was all just rosy talk, and in fact this is

1384
01:16:39,360 --> 01:16:42,759
Speaker 3: real stupidity and people are really to blame for this disaster.

1385
01:16:43,280 --> 01:16:45,200
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot to unpack here with just

1386
01:16:45,240 --> 01:16:47,680
Speaker 1: the symbolism of all of this. Because Mount Fuji, of

1387
01:16:47,680 --> 01:16:51,559
Speaker 1: course is a is a dormant volcano, so the tallest

1388
01:16:51,600 --> 01:16:55,000
Speaker 1: peak in Japan i at least the last eruption was

1389
01:16:55,040 --> 01:16:57,640
Speaker 1: seventeen oh seven. But at the same time it is

1390
01:16:57,760 --> 01:17:01,599
Speaker 1: very much a symbol of Japan. And then on top

1391
01:17:01,640 --> 01:17:04,840
Speaker 1: of that we have the like the dream logic here

1392
01:17:04,920 --> 01:17:08,400
Speaker 1: as well, of the mountain we learn is not actually erupting,

1393
01:17:09,080 --> 01:17:15,040
Speaker 1: it is nuclear meltdowns happening like behind the mountain. But

1394
01:17:15,160 --> 01:17:17,680
Speaker 1: at the same time everything has like the flavor of

1395
01:17:17,760 --> 01:17:20,840
Speaker 1: volcanic eruptions, so it's like both things at once without

1396
01:17:20,880 --> 01:17:21,400
Speaker 1: being either.

1397
01:17:21,800 --> 01:17:24,920
Speaker 3: This one also has that horrifying sense of futility because

1398
01:17:24,920 --> 01:17:28,519
Speaker 3: it ends with a really just gut wrenching scene where

1399
01:17:28,520 --> 01:17:32,040
Speaker 3: there's like a woman with two children who have joined him,

1400
01:17:32,080 --> 01:17:35,360
Speaker 3: and the protagonist is trying to protect them as like

1401
01:17:35,400 --> 01:17:38,840
Speaker 3: the fog clouds billow toward them, and he's in this

1402
01:17:39,000 --> 01:17:42,120
Speaker 3: utterly feudal gesture. He's like waving at the fog clouds

1403
01:17:42,120 --> 01:17:45,240
Speaker 3: with his jacket, trying to fan them away. But there's

1404
01:17:45,240 --> 01:17:48,040
Speaker 3: a sense that everyone is just doomed and there's nothing

1405
01:17:48,080 --> 01:17:51,360
Speaker 3: anyone can do. Again, ends right at the height of

1406
01:17:51,360 --> 01:17:54,880
Speaker 3: the action and then goes on to the next segment,

1407
01:17:54,920 --> 01:17:58,000
Speaker 3: another nuclear horror segment. Called The Weeping Demon, where our

1408
01:17:58,040 --> 01:18:01,479
Speaker 3: protagonist is wandering in this volcan a landscape very much.

1409
01:18:01,920 --> 01:18:04,639
Speaker 3: It's almost like the slopes of Mount Fuji maybe, where

1410
01:18:04,640 --> 01:18:07,320
Speaker 3: there's a kind of dark volcanic soil and all these

1411
01:18:07,439 --> 01:18:11,560
Speaker 3: rocks and mist and fog billowing everywhere, and he encounters

1412
01:18:11,640 --> 01:18:14,599
Speaker 3: this monstrous looking figure with a horn on his head,

1413
01:18:14,600 --> 01:18:17,040
Speaker 3: which I think is initially styled to be some sort

1414
01:18:17,080 --> 01:18:18,120
Speaker 3: of some kind of ony.

1415
01:18:18,840 --> 01:18:22,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely some ony vibes to this creature. I also

1416
01:18:23,000 --> 01:18:28,120
Speaker 1: have to flag that I again am sick and I

1417
01:18:28,120 --> 01:18:30,439
Speaker 1: had a fever while watching this film. I think my

1418
01:18:30,520 --> 01:18:33,439
Speaker 1: eyes shut for a second at the very end of

1419
01:18:33,520 --> 01:18:37,000
Speaker 1: the Mount Fuji segment and then reopened during The Weeping Demon,

1420
01:18:37,280 --> 01:18:39,840
Speaker 1: and I thought it was one segment, but there is

1421
01:18:39,920 --> 01:18:42,080
Speaker 1: kind of like a similar vibe, like he's heading off

1422
01:18:42,240 --> 01:18:47,120
Speaker 1: into the nuclear waste at the end of Mount Fuji

1423
01:18:47,200 --> 01:18:50,720
Speaker 1: and now here we are in a different atomic wasteland.

1424
01:18:51,040 --> 01:18:51,400
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1425
01:18:51,439 --> 01:18:54,000
Speaker 3: And then after this we get a long discourse from

1426
01:18:54,040 --> 01:18:57,320
Speaker 3: the Demon as he explains this hell they have created.

1427
01:18:58,200 --> 01:19:02,639
Speaker 3: He sort of explains himself as a mutated product of radiation,

1428
01:19:02,880 --> 01:19:06,480
Speaker 3: and then he they sit under these tree sized dandelions

1429
01:19:06,520 --> 01:19:10,240
Speaker 3: that are twisted and mutated by the radioactive fallout, and

1430
01:19:10,280 --> 01:19:13,040
Speaker 3: then he talks about these different kinds of demons, these

1431
01:19:13,080 --> 01:19:17,120
Speaker 3: like grades of demons. The demon with one horn is scary,

1432
01:19:17,200 --> 01:19:19,400
Speaker 3: but the demons with one horn get eaten by the

1433
01:19:19,400 --> 01:19:23,040
Speaker 3: demons who have two or three horns, and they're also hungry.

1434
01:19:23,400 --> 01:19:26,160
Speaker 3: And then we see there's like a scene where the

1435
01:19:26,160 --> 01:19:28,320
Speaker 3: demon is like, come, I'll show you, and he leads

1436
01:19:28,360 --> 01:19:30,880
Speaker 3: the protagonists to this overlook where they look down at

1437
01:19:30,920 --> 01:19:34,960
Speaker 3: these gross like pools of pink and red water, where

1438
01:19:34,960 --> 01:19:37,280
Speaker 3: all of these demons are like running around them in

1439
01:19:37,320 --> 01:19:41,640
Speaker 3: circles in a way that suggests representations from Dante's Inferno,

1440
01:19:41,680 --> 01:19:43,960
Speaker 3: where you know, in hell you will have the damned

1441
01:19:43,960 --> 01:19:48,200
Speaker 3: sort of like running in pointless circles around something. Uh

1442
01:19:48,479 --> 01:19:52,200
Speaker 3: and it and it's like they're they're calling out, they're

1443
01:19:52,240 --> 01:19:54,519
Speaker 3: you know, they're ready, they're gonna come eat them soon.

1444
01:19:55,680 --> 01:19:59,200
Speaker 3: But they're in pain themselves. They're suffering. Their horns cause

1445
01:19:59,280 --> 01:20:03,320
Speaker 3: them pain. And we learned so many things. The demon

1446
01:20:03,360 --> 01:20:06,759
Speaker 3: explains he was again there's this thing of like eyebear

1447
01:20:06,880 --> 01:20:11,200
Speaker 3: individual responsibility. He explains, I was a farmer who destroyed

1448
01:20:11,240 --> 01:20:15,600
Speaker 3: my harvest as part of a scheme to keep prices high,

1449
01:20:17,040 --> 01:20:19,400
Speaker 3: but they talk about other people who did other things

1450
01:20:19,479 --> 01:20:22,960
Speaker 3: who may have become even worse kinds of demons themselves.

1451
01:20:23,720 --> 01:20:27,000
Speaker 3: And so another just bleak, horrifying segment that also ends

1452
01:20:27,360 --> 01:20:30,720
Speaker 3: with the demon just menacing the Krusauer protagonist, and the

1453
01:20:30,760 --> 01:20:33,000
Speaker 3: protagonist is running away down the side of the mountain,

1454
01:20:33,120 --> 01:20:36,439
Speaker 3: looking constantly like he's about to go headlong and tumble away.

1455
01:20:36,840 --> 01:20:39,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like he's berating him right, like, get out

1456
01:20:39,200 --> 01:20:40,639
Speaker 1: of here. Do you want to become a demon too?

1457
01:20:40,960 --> 01:20:41,640
Speaker 4: Yeah?

1458
01:20:41,880 --> 01:20:46,280
Speaker 1: So this one was at once like as bleak as

1459
01:20:46,400 --> 01:20:50,320
Speaker 1: the previous segment, but also since we had these monster

1460
01:20:50,640 --> 01:20:54,000
Speaker 1: like beings, it also felt like a little more escapist.

1461
01:20:54,800 --> 01:20:59,519
Speaker 1: So I was again, all of these segments are excellently

1462
01:20:59,760 --> 01:21:03,519
Speaker 1: put together, but in a way this one felt like

1463
01:21:03,560 --> 01:21:07,559
Speaker 1: a nice turn away from the seriousness of the previous

1464
01:21:07,600 --> 01:21:08,639
Speaker 1: Mount Fuji sequence.

1465
01:21:09,280 --> 01:21:13,000
Speaker 3: And then we get a very sharp turn into different

1466
01:21:13,120 --> 01:21:16,960
Speaker 3: territory for the last sequence, which is the Village of

1467
01:21:17,000 --> 01:21:20,959
Speaker 3: the Water Mills. So our protagonist here, the Dreamer, arrives

1468
01:21:20,960 --> 01:21:24,360
Speaker 3: by foot in a small rural village beside a river.

1469
01:21:25,640 --> 01:21:28,559
Speaker 3: There are these old wooden water wheels turning in the current.

1470
01:21:28,680 --> 01:21:31,800
Speaker 3: I guess they're running mills and there are flowers blooming everywhere,

1471
01:21:32,360 --> 01:21:35,640
Speaker 3: and karsaw what really takes time to show us the

1472
01:21:36,160 --> 01:21:38,639
Speaker 3: nature around there, to show us like green water plants

1473
01:21:38,720 --> 01:21:41,120
Speaker 3: waving in the stream, kind of like hair blowing in

1474
01:21:41,120 --> 01:21:45,439
Speaker 3: the wind. And the Dreamer comes in and he watches

1475
01:21:45,800 --> 01:21:48,000
Speaker 3: the children as they sort of gather on a little

1476
01:21:48,000 --> 01:21:50,800
Speaker 3: island in the stream that's bridged, you know that they

1477
01:21:50,840 --> 01:21:53,639
Speaker 3: reach by bridge and they pick flowers there, and they

1478
01:21:53,640 --> 01:21:56,639
Speaker 3: take the flowers and they lay them all on a stone.

1479
01:21:56,680 --> 01:22:00,679
Speaker 3: It's a very just beautiful, kind of gentle scene. And

1480
01:22:00,760 --> 01:22:03,240
Speaker 3: the dreamer meets an old man who's working on a

1481
01:22:03,280 --> 01:22:06,680
Speaker 3: water wheel mechanism of some kind, and they have a

1482
01:22:06,680 --> 01:22:09,160
Speaker 3: long conversation where the old man just kind of explains

1483
01:22:09,160 --> 01:22:11,840
Speaker 3: his philosophy. They talk about all kinds of things. A

1484
01:22:11,880 --> 01:22:13,840
Speaker 3: big part of it is him talking about how they

1485
01:22:13,840 --> 01:22:17,160
Speaker 3: don't need technology in this village. The man's like, don't

1486
01:22:17,160 --> 01:22:19,280
Speaker 3: you have electricity here? And the man's like, we don't

1487
01:22:19,320 --> 01:22:21,960
Speaker 3: need it, and he's like, yeah, but what about at

1488
01:22:22,040 --> 01:22:24,280
Speaker 3: night when it gets dark? And the guy's like, night

1489
01:22:24,360 --> 01:22:29,719
Speaker 3: is supposed to be dark. And so the main thrust

1490
01:22:29,760 --> 01:22:35,200
Speaker 3: of the old man's philosophy is that people in people

1491
01:22:35,200 --> 01:22:38,200
Speaker 3: in the cities think that labor saving technology will make

1492
01:22:38,240 --> 01:22:41,680
Speaker 3: them happy, but secretly it just makes them more miserable,

1493
01:22:42,080 --> 01:22:45,080
Speaker 3: and they don't realize it until they have already destroyed

1494
01:22:45,080 --> 01:22:47,200
Speaker 3: the natural world and they can't get it back.

1495
01:22:48,120 --> 01:22:51,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, this segment is great in so many ways. Like

1496
01:22:51,760 --> 01:22:58,200
Speaker 1: it's definitely another rumination on this idea of the idyllic

1497
01:22:59,040 --> 01:23:04,280
Speaker 1: rural Han versus modern urban Japan, something that you see

1498
01:23:04,320 --> 01:23:07,320
Speaker 1: in multiple studio ghibli pictures. So if any of you

1499
01:23:07,400 --> 01:23:11,320
Speaker 1: are certainly more familiar with the works of Miyazaki, you've

1500
01:23:11,360 --> 01:23:13,519
Speaker 1: seen this kind of vibe. And I believe and I

1501
01:23:13,560 --> 01:23:16,080
Speaker 1: would go as far as to say, like this the

1502
01:23:16,160 --> 01:23:19,240
Speaker 1: sequence too, Like it feels very much in line with

1503
01:23:19,280 --> 01:23:21,439
Speaker 1: like a Miyazaki film too, and that we have just

1504
01:23:21,479 --> 01:23:25,839
Speaker 1: such vibrant colors, like this is the world in full bloom.

1505
01:23:25,920 --> 01:23:28,720
Speaker 1: This is like it is almost like an Eden to

1506
01:23:28,760 --> 01:23:31,759
Speaker 1: some extent. And oh and by the way, I should

1507
01:23:31,760 --> 01:23:36,120
Speaker 1: mention that that documentary Curisawa was Way also features interview

1508
01:23:36,160 --> 01:23:39,040
Speaker 1: segments with Miyazaki. He's one of the many directors who

1509
01:23:39,400 --> 01:23:41,840
Speaker 1: talks about his admiration for Cursawa's work.

1510
01:23:42,680 --> 01:23:46,559
Speaker 3: This segment absolutely has strong Miyazaki vibes. Yeah, in that

1511
01:23:46,680 --> 01:23:51,440
Speaker 3: love for verdant nature and the environmentalist outlook.

1512
01:23:51,080 --> 01:23:52,320
Speaker 4: And all that sort of thing.

1513
01:23:52,600 --> 01:23:55,160
Speaker 3: And then also, I think in this next moment, because

1514
01:23:55,640 --> 01:23:58,760
Speaker 3: after this the protagonist here is what sounds like a celebration.

1515
01:23:58,920 --> 01:24:03,559
Speaker 3: He hears laugh her and shouting and happy music, and

1516
01:24:03,640 --> 01:24:06,000
Speaker 3: the old man explains to him, actually, what he's hearing

1517
01:24:06,120 --> 01:24:09,680
Speaker 3: is a funeral. It's a good, happy funeral, And this

1518
01:24:09,760 --> 01:24:12,400
Speaker 3: is another part of his philosophy. He says, well, when

1519
01:24:12,400 --> 01:24:15,040
Speaker 3: someone dies young, it's sad, but when someone dies in

1520
01:24:15,120 --> 01:24:17,840
Speaker 3: old age, it's a joyous occasion because they lived a

1521
01:24:17,880 --> 01:24:21,639
Speaker 3: full life. So the people march and they sing happy songs.

1522
01:24:22,120 --> 01:24:24,280
Speaker 3: And the woman who died in the funeral that's being

1523
01:24:24,360 --> 01:24:27,280
Speaker 3: celebrated today was almost one hundred years old. In fact,

1524
01:24:27,640 --> 01:24:30,080
Speaker 3: she was this old man's first love when they were

1525
01:24:30,120 --> 01:24:33,080
Speaker 3: both very young. She broke his heart she married another,

1526
01:24:33,240 --> 01:24:34,640
Speaker 3: and then he just laughs about it.

1527
01:24:35,240 --> 01:24:36,280
Speaker 1: I love his laugh here.

1528
01:24:36,920 --> 01:24:41,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's also the protagonist asks the old man about

1529
01:24:41,439 --> 01:24:43,720
Speaker 3: the stone where the children laid the flowers, and the

1530
01:24:43,720 --> 01:24:46,400
Speaker 3: man tells the story. He says that long ago a

1531
01:24:46,520 --> 01:24:49,439
Speaker 3: traveler came to the village, much like our dreamer here,

1532
01:24:49,920 --> 01:24:53,080
Speaker 3: but he arrived sick like he brought the sickness of

1533
01:24:53,120 --> 01:24:56,360
Speaker 3: the modern world with him, and he collapsed and died

1534
01:24:56,439 --> 01:24:59,200
Speaker 3: beside the river, and the people took pity on him,

1535
01:24:59,520 --> 01:25:01,680
Speaker 3: and they buried him right where he fell, and the

1536
01:25:01,720 --> 01:25:04,880
Speaker 3: stone is his grave marker, and the children place flowers

1537
01:25:04,920 --> 01:25:07,240
Speaker 3: on it. It's hard not to think about the man

1538
01:25:07,240 --> 01:25:10,400
Speaker 3: who died as being kind of suggested as another version

1539
01:25:10,479 --> 01:25:14,200
Speaker 3: of the visitor of the Dreamer here. And then from here,

1540
01:25:14,240 --> 01:25:16,479
Speaker 3: the old man goes off to celebrate the death of

1541
01:25:16,479 --> 01:25:19,519
Speaker 3: his first love, and the traveler watches the funeral march

1542
01:25:19,560 --> 01:25:22,400
Speaker 3: and listens to the happy music, and he feels kind

1543
01:25:22,400 --> 01:25:25,960
Speaker 3: of infused with the goodness and the happiness of this place.

1544
01:25:26,120 --> 01:25:29,120
Speaker 3: And we hear the music as well, and that's the end.

1545
01:25:29,640 --> 01:25:32,679
Speaker 1: The music is so terrific here, as I mentioned earlier,

1546
01:25:32,760 --> 01:25:35,840
Speaker 1: like I don't know exactly what you call this type

1547
01:25:35,840 --> 01:25:39,599
Speaker 1: of song, like how this factors into traditional Japanese music,

1548
01:25:39,640 --> 01:25:42,320
Speaker 1: but it's very joyous, like the old man explains it,

1549
01:25:42,360 --> 01:25:45,599
Speaker 1: like this is a celebration of life, and you totally

1550
01:25:45,640 --> 01:25:47,960
Speaker 1: feel it. You see it on the faces of all

1551
01:25:48,000 --> 01:25:52,040
Speaker 1: of the villagers in this procession. It's just such a

1552
01:25:52,080 --> 01:25:52,839
Speaker 1: great vibe.

1553
01:25:53,040 --> 01:25:54,560
Speaker 3: I want to come back to that joy in just

1554
01:25:54,600 --> 01:25:56,720
Speaker 3: a minute. But I guess before we wrap up, I

1555
01:25:56,800 --> 01:25:58,880
Speaker 3: just wanted to mention a couple of the other interesting

1556
01:25:59,120 --> 01:26:02,560
Speaker 3: themes and threads I saw tying together these very different narratives.

1557
01:26:03,920 --> 01:26:06,680
Speaker 3: One thing that I noticed, Rob, did you notice this

1558
01:26:06,760 --> 01:26:11,920
Speaker 3: theme of the dilemma of being destroyed versus being transformed?

1559
01:26:13,040 --> 01:26:16,400
Speaker 3: That like in several of the more nightmarish scenes, especially,

1560
01:26:16,920 --> 01:26:18,960
Speaker 3: there is a dilemma faced by the characters in which

1561
01:26:19,000 --> 01:26:22,000
Speaker 3: they can either be annihilated, they can cease to exist

1562
01:26:22,600 --> 01:26:26,880
Speaker 3: or live on transformed into something tortured and unnatural. This

1563
01:26:27,000 --> 01:26:30,040
Speaker 3: is a major theme of the Weeping Demon. It comes

1564
01:26:30,080 --> 01:26:32,160
Speaker 3: up in Mount Fuji and Red, where they talk about

1565
01:26:32,200 --> 01:26:35,120
Speaker 3: the idea of immediate death versus a slow death from

1566
01:26:35,200 --> 01:26:38,519
Speaker 3: the effects of radiation. It comes up in the Tunnel

1567
01:26:38,600 --> 01:26:41,439
Speaker 3: because the dead soldiers can't acknowledge that they are dead

1568
01:26:41,479 --> 01:26:44,160
Speaker 3: and they must cease to exist. Thus they go on

1569
01:26:44,320 --> 01:26:48,960
Speaker 3: in this baffled, twisted state of blue undeath. This clearly

1570
01:26:48,960 --> 01:26:52,960
Speaker 3: seems to be something that is on Koorrosova's mind. Another

1571
01:26:53,040 --> 01:26:58,400
Speaker 3: thing is across multiple scenes, I noticed a repeated theme

1572
01:26:58,479 --> 01:27:02,160
Speaker 3: of people getting no help from authorities and in fact

1573
01:27:02,280 --> 01:27:07,600
Speaker 3: authority figures, suggesting that you must die. Like there are

1574
01:27:07,680 --> 01:27:11,360
Speaker 3: multiple scenes where someone is denied aid by someone who

1575
01:27:11,400 --> 01:27:14,000
Speaker 3: should help them, or by an authority figure like a

1576
01:27:14,080 --> 01:27:17,240
Speaker 3: parent the mother in the first sequence, or a government

1577
01:27:17,280 --> 01:27:19,800
Speaker 3: official or a military commander.

1578
01:27:19,640 --> 01:27:20,880
Speaker 1: And a corporate world.

1579
01:27:21,320 --> 01:27:25,080
Speaker 3: Yes, in all these cases the authority figure suggests there

1580
01:27:25,120 --> 01:27:26,920
Speaker 3: is nothing I can do to help you, and you

1581
01:27:27,000 --> 01:27:30,639
Speaker 3: must die. But then, finally, and I think this brings

1582
01:27:30,680 --> 01:27:34,000
Speaker 3: us back to the last segment, there is a more

1583
01:27:34,760 --> 01:27:37,759
Speaker 3: theme that you get in both negative and positive visions,

1584
01:27:38,320 --> 01:27:41,880
Speaker 3: and it's something about the holiness of nature, something about

1585
01:27:41,880 --> 01:27:44,640
Speaker 3: how the holiness of nature is not appreciated, but that

1586
01:27:44,720 --> 01:27:48,840
Speaker 3: there is promise in coming to see it. And so

1587
01:27:49,600 --> 01:27:52,000
Speaker 3: I think the clear statement of the idea is that

1588
01:27:52,040 --> 01:27:55,840
Speaker 3: the natural world is absolutely vital to us, but that

1589
01:27:55,920 --> 01:28:00,040
Speaker 3: we remain blind to how important it is until we

1590
01:28:00,080 --> 01:28:03,559
Speaker 3: have already destroyed it. This theme is made very plain

1591
01:28:03,600 --> 01:28:05,320
Speaker 3: in the speech given by the old Man and the

1592
01:28:05,360 --> 01:28:07,240
Speaker 3: final Dream, where he you know, he's talking about the

1593
01:28:07,320 --> 01:28:10,880
Speaker 3: virtues of living simply and being in harmony with nature.

1594
01:28:11,479 --> 01:28:14,480
Speaker 3: He talks about the false promise of happiness through technology

1595
01:28:14,640 --> 01:28:18,920
Speaker 3: and convenience and materialism. But you see this theme occur

1596
01:28:18,960 --> 01:28:22,000
Speaker 3: at different levels through I think most of the segments,

1597
01:28:22,080 --> 01:28:25,519
Speaker 3: like the boy in the peach orchard is redeemed by

1598
01:28:25,600 --> 01:28:28,120
Speaker 3: proving that he hated the idea of cutting down the

1599
01:28:28,160 --> 01:28:31,280
Speaker 3: peach trees and that he loved the orchard for the

1600
01:28:31,320 --> 01:28:34,120
Speaker 3: living beauty of the plants, not just for the produce,

1601
01:28:34,280 --> 01:28:37,200
Speaker 3: not just for the material, you know, the peaches they grew.

1602
01:28:37,600 --> 01:28:40,080
Speaker 1: And in that segment we see that some level of

1603
01:28:40,120 --> 01:28:44,080
Speaker 1: regeneration is possible, like the we see that one plant

1604
01:28:44,080 --> 01:28:46,280
Speaker 1: that is growing back the promise of the future.

1605
01:28:46,560 --> 01:28:46,880
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1606
01:28:46,920 --> 01:28:49,479
Speaker 3: And in the crows segment also this is part of

1607
01:28:49,520 --> 01:28:52,479
Speaker 3: what van go like, he discusses this kind of almost

1608
01:28:52,640 --> 01:28:59,639
Speaker 3: life or death drive to find purpose and positive meaning

1609
01:28:59,680 --> 01:29:03,519
Speaker 3: in life by like seeking out what's beautiful and valuable

1610
01:29:03,560 --> 01:29:06,040
Speaker 3: in nature and kind of processing it through, you know,

1611
01:29:06,160 --> 01:29:08,720
Speaker 3: to take that scene of nature and to make it

1612
01:29:08,800 --> 01:29:11,160
Speaker 3: part of himself and to make himself part of it.

1613
01:29:12,080 --> 01:29:12,479
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1614
01:29:12,520 --> 01:29:14,040
Speaker 3: And then of course that brings us back to the

1615
01:29:14,080 --> 01:29:19,400
Speaker 3: funeral at the end. There's something relieving and gorgeous and

1616
01:29:19,439 --> 01:29:22,680
Speaker 3: cathartic about the funeral because it suggests a kind of

1617
01:29:23,680 --> 01:29:28,880
Speaker 3: a way of happiness, happiness and purpose and goodness even

1618
01:29:28,920 --> 01:29:32,000
Speaker 3: in death, by finding your life in the kind of

1619
01:29:32,000 --> 01:29:34,120
Speaker 3: state that these villagers find it that, you know, that

1620
01:29:34,200 --> 01:29:37,479
Speaker 3: they live in harmony with nature, and they realize they

1621
01:29:37,560 --> 01:29:39,840
Speaker 3: see beauty around them and they take part of it.

1622
01:29:39,880 --> 01:29:41,840
Speaker 3: They don't, you know, they don't remain blind to it.

1623
01:29:42,160 --> 01:29:44,519
Speaker 3: They become part of it, and they work with it,

1624
01:29:44,640 --> 01:29:47,479
Speaker 3: and it makes even death a happy thing.

1625
01:29:48,439 --> 01:29:51,559
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, return to nature or return to traditional values.

1626
01:29:51,600 --> 01:29:55,120
Speaker 1: This is you see this as a recurring theme in

1627
01:29:55,320 --> 01:29:59,240
Speaker 1: Japanese media of this time period especially, but also I

1628
01:29:59,280 --> 01:30:03,040
Speaker 1: think globally as well. I mean, this idea of returning

1629
01:30:03,080 --> 01:30:06,280
Speaker 1: to nature, returning to the garden, you know, you see

1630
01:30:06,280 --> 01:30:12,040
Speaker 1: that certainly throughout the later half of the twentieth century

1631
01:30:12,520 --> 01:30:16,479
Speaker 1: and on through storytelling today. I don't think it's a

1632
01:30:16,520 --> 01:30:20,640
Speaker 1: revelation that thankfully we've completely abandoned.

1633
01:30:21,320 --> 01:30:23,560
Speaker 3: Or could hope to put into a kind of happy synthesis,

1634
01:30:23,600 --> 01:30:26,479
Speaker 3: because I also don't think it's quite fair to fully embrace,

1635
01:30:26,600 --> 01:30:30,840
Speaker 3: like the philosophy that all labor saving conveniences are bad

1636
01:30:31,040 --> 01:30:34,760
Speaker 3: or something, you know, that happiness is necessarily through like

1637
01:30:35,160 --> 01:30:38,320
Speaker 3: destroying all machines and not having electricity. I mean, maybe

1638
01:30:38,360 --> 01:30:40,760
Speaker 3: it is, but I'm not sure that's the case. But

1639
01:30:40,920 --> 01:30:43,200
Speaker 3: certainly there is a lot of wisdom in the movies

1640
01:30:43,240 --> 01:30:48,800
Speaker 3: plea to be more conscious and protective of nature, and

1641
01:30:48,880 --> 01:30:53,240
Speaker 3: to see ourselves as being in an absolutely vital kind

1642
01:30:53,240 --> 01:30:56,519
Speaker 3: of personal relationship with it, each one of us, and

1643
01:30:56,680 --> 01:30:58,240
Speaker 3: also together as a community.

1644
01:30:58,760 --> 01:31:03,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, that's the dream. Anyway, in this case, Curasawa

1645
01:31:03,240 --> 01:31:03,920
Speaker 1: is Dreams.

1646
01:31:06,120 --> 01:31:08,200
Speaker 3: All right, well, I guess that's what I've got on Dreams.

1647
01:31:09,080 --> 01:31:11,120
Speaker 3: Rob is the is the cold medicine flagging?

1648
01:31:11,960 --> 01:31:14,120
Speaker 1: Yeah? Probably so, I believe. I believe I'm running out

1649
01:31:14,160 --> 01:31:16,720
Speaker 1: of energy here, but this is a great one. I'm

1650
01:31:16,760 --> 01:31:20,200
Speaker 1: so glad you picked Dreams for us to watch here

1651
01:31:20,240 --> 01:31:24,160
Speaker 1: for this episode of Weird House Cinema. Again, it's widely available,

1652
01:31:24,479 --> 01:31:28,600
Speaker 1: It's well worth watching, and again it's really hard to

1653
01:31:28,640 --> 01:31:33,360
Speaker 1: think of. I love dream sequences in films and television,

1654
01:31:34,760 --> 01:31:39,120
Speaker 1: but I find it rare that a filmmaker actually captures

1655
01:31:39,120 --> 01:31:43,959
Speaker 1: some true essence of dream and a Cura Curasawa absolutely

1656
01:31:44,040 --> 01:31:47,040
Speaker 1: nails it here. Yeah, yeah, all right, we're gonna gohe

1657
01:31:47,040 --> 01:31:49,720
Speaker 1: and close it up. But hey, we'll be back next

1658
01:31:49,760 --> 01:31:54,040
Speaker 1: week with another cinematic masterpiece. Stay tuned for that one.

1659
01:31:54,560 --> 01:31:57,200
Speaker 1: Just a reminder that Weird House Cinema this is the

1660
01:31:57,520 --> 01:32:00,719
Speaker 1: episode that publishes on Fridays, and the stuff to Blow

1661
01:32:00,760 --> 01:32:04,960
Speaker 1: Your Mind podcast feed. We're also experimenting with a standalone

1662
01:32:05,040 --> 01:32:07,400
Speaker 1: playlist of Weird House Cinema, so you can find Weird

1663
01:32:07,400 --> 01:32:11,760
Speaker 1: House Cinema listed separately on whatever platform it is you

1664
01:32:11,760 --> 01:32:14,040
Speaker 1: having to get your podcasts at, so check that out.

1665
01:32:14,320 --> 01:32:16,320
Speaker 1: And if you are on a letterbox dot com you

1666
01:32:16,320 --> 01:32:19,400
Speaker 1: can find us there. We are weird House. That's our username,

1667
01:32:19,400 --> 01:32:21,040
Speaker 1: and there's a list of all the films we've covered

1668
01:32:21,040 --> 01:32:23,240
Speaker 1: thus far and sometimes a peek ahead at what's coming

1669
01:32:23,320 --> 01:32:23,759
Speaker 1: up next.

1670
01:32:24,320 --> 01:32:28,000
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.

1671
01:32:28,160 --> 01:32:29,559
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1672
01:32:29,600 --> 01:32:32,000
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1673
01:32:32,040 --> 01:32:34,000
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1674
01:32:34,400 --> 01:32:36,920
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1675
01:32:36,960 --> 01:32:44,680
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

1676
01:32:44,800 --> 01:32:47,720
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1677
01:32:47,800 --> 01:32:50,599
Speaker 2: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1678
01:32:50,760 --> 01:32:54,000
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.