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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.

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Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 3: today on Weird House Cinema, we're going to be talking

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Speaker 3: about Akira Kurosawa's nineteen ninety anthology film Dreams, which is

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Speaker 3: exactly what it says on the box. This is a

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Speaker 3: collection of eight short vignettes that take the form of

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Speaker 3: dreams and nightmares. I had never seen this film before

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Speaker 3: this week when I picked it out for the show,

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Speaker 3: and I love this movie. But if you watch it,

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Speaker 3: you should know what you're getting into, especially if you've

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Speaker 3: liked other Corosawa movies. This is not Seven Samurai that's like,

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Speaker 3: you know, a gripping, exciting story. This is a movie

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Speaker 3: that really asks for your patients as an audience member.

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Speaker 3: The pace is moody and slow. There is no central

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Speaker 3: or overarching plot. There are some themes and character types

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Speaker 3: that recur, but each of the eight short stories is

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Speaker 3: essentially self contained, and they partake of extremely varied tones, settings,

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Speaker 3: and pacing. Some of the stories are like a weird

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Speaker 3: kind of improvisational fairy tale. Some are frightening, baffling encounters

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Speaker 3: with monstrous entities. Some are kind of idyllic meetings between

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Speaker 3: a curious protagonist and a thoughtful character, and some are

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Speaker 3: apocalyptic visions of a doomed earth. You really get all

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Speaker 3: different kinds of dreams in this movie.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, this is a great film. I'm so glad

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Speaker 2: you picked this one, Joe. This is not a Chrosall

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Speaker 2: film I'd ever seen either. Generally, I'd seen just a

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Speaker 2: handful of his Samurai epics, Throne of Blood being from

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Speaker 2: years back.

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Speaker 3: But it's of my favorites too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but I had not. I had not rewatched or

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Speaker 2: watched any Krosawa recently, so it was great to dive

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Speaker 2: into this one. And yeah, I absolutely agree. This movie

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Speaker 2: is true to the title, just steeped in the texture

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Speaker 2: of dream in a way that is I think, far

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Speaker 2: far more sublime than the mere trappings of the cinematic

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Speaker 2: dream sequence. Curasawa, with signature excellence here generates a strong

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Speaker 2: ambience of dreams, often, or at least it seems to me,

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Speaker 2: with a one two punch of first intriguing monotony and

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Speaker 2: 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 kind of earlier middle

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Speaker 3: section where something is kind of either slow and contemplative

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Speaker 3: or frustratingly repetitive and monotonous, and then suddenly there is

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

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Speaker 3: powerful emotional significance happens.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I found this very very interesting and

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Speaker 2: very true to my experiences with dreams and my recollection

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Speaker 2: of my own dreams. Intriguing monotony. Here is not a

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Speaker 2: dig at the picture or a kursawa. I think it's

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Speaker 2: it's ultimately kind of a revelation that we see dreams

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Speaker 2: presented in this manner, where like you know, generally our

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Speaker 2: dream the dreams that we have night to night are

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Speaker 2: not worthy of cinematic adaptation, but I think people may

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Speaker 2: recognize this basic form. Like I had this dream and

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Speaker 2: I was like I was trying to put together some

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Speaker 2: Ikia furniture and I couldn't put it together. And this

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Speaker 2: just kept happening for what seemed like hours, and then

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Speaker 2: my dad showed up and I had a conversation with

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Speaker 2: my long deceased father, that sort of thing, you know,

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Speaker 2: with so like a one two punch of monotony, lost

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Speaker 2: in some sort of an environment or a situation that

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Speaker 2: may not have anything that's really driving it forward, and

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Speaker 2: then there's some sort of emotional upwelling. It's almost like

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Speaker 2: the dream is the garden of the subconscious, populated seemingly

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Speaker 2: by weeds of various thoughts, memories, and observations, and then

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Speaker 2: some powerful emotional resonance emerges through and into this dream garden,

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Speaker 2: 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 2: Yeah, and that that emotional upwelling. It might be love,

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Speaker 2: it might be fear, it might be regret. So in

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Speaker 2: any way, what I'm trying to say is yes to

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Speaker 2: all of that. Dreams is not a fast paced film.

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Speaker 2: If you're more familiar with Chrosawa's action and drama films,

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Speaker 2: this is a different beast. I also want to highlight

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Speaker 2: that I watched this film with a fever. I'm I've

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Speaker 2: just returned from some extensive travel and something came back

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Speaker 2: with me, and this is a This is a good

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Speaker 2: fever film. I have to say. If you find yourself

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Speaker 2: sort of drifting in and out, this is the perfect

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Speaker 2: film to do it. There was a time or two

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Speaker 2: where I caught myself falling asleep a little bit, which

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Speaker 2: sometimes happens when you become horizontal and you watch films.

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Speaker 2: But it's extra interesting with this picture because like Kurrasawa

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Speaker 2: has already put you into the monotony of the dream sequence,

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Speaker 2: you know, into the dream world, and so you find

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Speaker 2: yourself slipping into 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 2: Yeah, that one was, we'll get to that one. That

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Speaker 2: one was the rougher one for me. But anyway, this

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Speaker 2: is our first Karrosawa film on Weird House Cinema. We've

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Speaker 2: of course mentioned him numerous times in passing on the

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Speaker 2: show because, of course, a it's impossible to discuss Japanese

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Speaker 2: cinema without acknowledging a Kira Kurosawa. And you know, it's

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Speaker 2: certainly the case too with something like a Godzilla film,

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Speaker 2: even because those several of the Godzilla films we've talked

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Speaker 2: about in the show were filmed by Ishil Hondakrasawa's friend

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Speaker 2: and a frequent collaborator under tow Host Studios. And then

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Speaker 2: on top of all of this, it's ultimately impop well

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Speaker 2: to discuss cinema at all without eventually referencing Krosawa, as

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Speaker 2: he's one of the most famed and influential filmmakers of

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Speaker 2: 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 2: Yeah, Throwing of Blood is the one that previously I

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Speaker 2: considered that to be the Corosawa film we might get to.

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Speaker 2: 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 2: That's true. Oh, by the way, this is a Cura

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Speaker 2: Krosawa's Dreams, or sometimes just Dreams. It's often referenced by

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Speaker 2: that title. Not to be confused with nineteen ninety five's Memories,

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Speaker 2: an excellent animated anthology from Kutserhiro Otamo. These are two

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Speaker 2: very different films, but I have caught myself on multiple

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Speaker 2: occasions confusing the two titles in my mind. So I

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Speaker 2: suspect I'm not alone here. Memories is anime and it's excellent.

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Speaker 2: It's also an anthology. This is live action and it's Corsawa,

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Speaker 2: 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 sunshower when it's raining, but the sun is shining

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Speaker 3: against his mother's ad vice, 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: Hinomatsuri or the Dolls Day festival, sometimes the Girl's Day festival.

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Speaker 3: On this day, a boy follows a spectral girl dressed

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Speaker 3: in pink and white out to the terraces where a

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

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

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Speaker 3: and perform They talk to him, and they perform a

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

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

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Speaker 3: 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

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Speaker 3: meant the tunnel. While walking home after the end of

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

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Speaker 3: has to pass through a tunnel on a mountain road.

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Speaker 3: There he meets first an angry dog strapped with explosives,

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

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Speaker 3: who died under his command. The fifth segment crows. This

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

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Speaker 3: works of How are we going to say his name

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Speaker 3: in this episode? I always Vincent the painter, Vincent van

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Speaker 3: goch or Vincent van Go. I'm just going to say

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Speaker 3: van Go. I know that's not the correct original pronunciation.

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Speaker 3: I'm sorry. That's how I always learned it when I

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Speaker 3: was growing up the paintings of Vincent van Go. He

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Speaker 3: looks at these paintings, he admires them, and then he

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Speaker 3: sort of appears within the artistic world of van Go

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Speaker 3: and then finally meets the artist and learns things about

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Speaker 3: his vision and kind of interfaces with his view of

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Speaker 3: art and the world. After that, we get a segment

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Speaker 3: called Mount fou and Red. This is where the terror

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Speaker 3: really ramps up. Our Corrosawa surrogate here in many of

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Speaker 3: these segments are probably in all of them, you can

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Speaker 3: view the protagonist as some form of Kurusawa himself, either

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Speaker 3: as a child or a sort of alternate life version

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Speaker 3: of himself. In this segment, our surrogate finds himself in

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Speaker 3: a massive crowd of people fleeing a disaster. We see

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Speaker 3: Mount Fuji in the distance appear glowing hot, framed by explosions,

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Speaker 3: and then a man in a suit appears to explain

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Speaker 3: that these explosions are caused by a meltdown at a

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Speaker 3: nuclear power plant, and the people are being killed by

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Speaker 3: clouds full of radioactive isotopes, and it just gets worse

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Speaker 3: from there. Next we have the Weeping Demon. In this segment,

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Speaker 3: a man is climbing across a craggy, desolate landscape of

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Speaker 3: rocks and gravel, and he encounters a monstrous man with

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Speaker 3: a horn on his head. We learn that the man

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Speaker 3: has been mutated by nuclear fallout, and against a backdrop

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Speaker 3: of giant dandelions, he explains the cannibalistic hell of the

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Speaker 3: radioactive desert, and then in the final segment, we get

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Speaker 3: a rapid sort of down shift back into out of

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Speaker 3: all the horrors, into a more contemplative mode. This is

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Speaker 3: a segment called the Village of the Watermills, where our

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Speaker 3: Kurosawa protagonist kind of ambles into an idyllic rural village

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Speaker 3: along a river and he meets a wise old man

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Speaker 3: and observes the local customs.

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Speaker 2: I mean, no surprise, but Christawa really nailed it here

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Speaker 2: with the order. It's just it's the perfect There's no

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Speaker 2: 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. In some cases after some things were shot.

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Speaker 3: But you know, whatever the original intentions, it does feel

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Speaker 3: complete and cohesive to me with this set of aid

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Speaker 3: even though I now know there were originally going to

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

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Speaker 3: the right place.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And from what I understand of Krisawa's approach to filmmaking,

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Speaker 2: this seems to line up with the way he approached

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Speaker 2: things like you just sort of fine tune it as

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Speaker 2: you go, and then the eventual final form presents itself

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Speaker 2: to you, and in that case, these are the segments,

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Speaker 2: and this is the ore.

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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 Kurrasawa as a very meticulously

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Speaker 3: planning in advance kind of filmmaker that like he can

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Speaker 3: sort of see all the shots in his head ahead

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Speaker 3: of time, and he sort of is editing in his

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Speaker 3: mind ahead of time. Have you read similar things?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely it was. I had not really consumed

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Speaker 2: much about the man or his approach to filmmaking prior

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Speaker 2: to checking out a couple of the documentaries on the

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Speaker 2: Criterion collection disc for this film, which I'll reference here

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Speaker 2: in a bit, But uh, there's a behind the scenes,

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Speaker 2: some behind the scenes footage where you could see him

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Speaker 2: in action shooting with the picture, and then there's a uh,

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Speaker 2: there's a great twenty eleven documentary as well titled Kurrasawa's

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Speaker 2: Way that you know, gets into this a bit as well.

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Speaker 2: And Yeah, one of the things that I found very

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Speaker 2: interesting is that like he's apparently, you know, very much

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Speaker 2: kind of a loner, a man of few words. There,

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Speaker 2: you know, he would what he would say about his

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Speaker 2: process and A and and certainly in his directorial approach

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Speaker 2: was often succinct and to the point. But uh, but

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Speaker 2: he wasn't. He was admittedly like not somebody that would

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Speaker 2: talk about theory a lot like it kind of like

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Speaker 2: he sees it in his head, he knows exactly how

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Speaker 2: he wants it to work, and then you know, some

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Speaker 2: amount of experimentation finding that that form. But he's he's

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Speaker 2: not spouting a lot of theory. He's not then doing

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Speaker 2: a lot of a film theory analysis of what worked

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Speaker 2: and what didn't. And it's kind of left to all

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Speaker 2: of the people that he influenced to come back and

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Speaker 2: 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 the technical expression of

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

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Speaker 3: their 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 is one

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

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like he has he certainly has all those

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Speaker 2: technical abilities and those exceptional at them, but they're they're

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Speaker 2: kind of they kind of almost seems like they're internalized

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Speaker 2: to a degree to where it's like all this is

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Speaker 2: going on inside. And again he's not discussing the theory

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Speaker 2: of how it's all coming together, but it certainly comes together.

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Speaker 3: You know. I had typed up a list of themes

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: after we talk about the plot in a little more detail,

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Speaker 3: or the plots all right, So we would usually say

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Speaker 3: an elevator pitch here, I think we've sort of already

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Speaker 3: given it. It's Kira Kurosawa takes you on a tour

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Speaker 3: of his dreams.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I would also submit, oops, I had another dream.

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

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Speaker 3: in to just say I had another dream.

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Speaker 2: All right, if you would like to watch Dreams the

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Speaker 2: cure Crosawa's Dreams. Fortunately, this one's widely available, various streaming

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Speaker 2: options out there. We can watch it digitally. I watched

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Speaker 2: it on the Criterion Collection Blu Ray, which I written

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Speaker 2: from Atlanta's own videodrome. Some excellent extras on this disc,

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Speaker 2: as you'd expect, and I'll be referencing some of those.

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Speaker 2: It's must purchase for anyone, or must rent for anyone

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Speaker 2: who wants to go for a deeper dive into this movie.

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Speaker 2: As of this recording, the film is not on Criterion Channel,

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Speaker 2: but as with any streaming service, titles come and go there.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if that's simply the case, or it

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Speaker 2: has something to do with the Warner Brothers aspect of

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Speaker 2: this production. I'm not sure, but yeah, you can definitely

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Speaker 2: get it on Criterion Collection, Blu ray or DVD, but

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Speaker 2: it's not on Criterion Channel right now, all right?

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Speaker 3: Should we talk about the connections.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get into it starting, I guess with Kira Kurosawa,

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Speaker 2: the director and writer who lived nineteen ten through nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety eight, and I really have to preface here and

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Speaker 2: say that it feels really challenging to do any sort

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Speaker 2: of brief summary of such a cinematic icon. But you know,

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Speaker 2: here it goes. This brief summary year based on some

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Speaker 2: information that I read at the excellent Akira Kurosawa dot

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Speaker 2: info page, which is really good, as well as the

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Speaker 2: extras on the disc that I just referenced. So, Krasawa

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Speaker 2: was the youngest child and a moderately wealthy Japanese family

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Speaker 2: descended from the former samurai class. His initial creative interest

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Speaker 2: was painting, which is interesting given one of our segments

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Speaker 2: in this film, but he followed his gifted older brother,

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Speaker 2: Hego in his passion for cinema. Hago worked as an

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Speaker 2: on site silent film narrator or benshi at this time

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Speaker 2: and apparently enjoyed some amount of success there, and as

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Speaker 2: Akira lived with him at the time, he was able

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Speaker 2: to gain entry into an array of films, plays, and

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Speaker 2: circus performances, which he would later cite as being very

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Speaker 2: influential on his craft. Now, Hago's work dried up with

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Speaker 2: the decline of silent films during the nineteen thirties, Akira

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Speaker 2: moved back with his parents and two of his sisters,

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Speaker 2: and Hago sadly died by suicide in nineteen thirty three.

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Speaker 2: In nineteen thirty five, the Kurra Crosawa answered an advert

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Speaker 2: in the newspaper from Photo Chemical Laboratories PCL. This is

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Speaker 2: what would go on to become Toho Studios. They were

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Speaker 2: seeking new assistant directors to engage in a mentor apprenticeship program,

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Speaker 2: and so Akira submitted an essay. I've read that it

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Speaker 2: was kind of a cheeky submission where he's like, the

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Speaker 2: prompt was something like what would you do to fix

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Speaker 2: a Japanese cinema And he's like, it can't be fixed

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Speaker 2: or something. I don't know, but at any rate he

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Speaker 2: won them over. He received a callback, and he went

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Speaker 2: on to work with numerous established and up and coming directors.

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Speaker 2: A special note his mentor, Kajiro Yamamoto. Kurosawa also took

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Speaker 2: to screenwriting during this time, saw the value of that,

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Speaker 2: and he served as a second unit or assistant director

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Speaker 2: on numerous films and wrote screenplays for a handful of

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Speaker 2: films before co writing and filming his first directorial effort

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Speaker 2: with nineteen forty three's Sanshiro Sugata, a serious judo drama.

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Speaker 2: I've not seen this one, but I've seen some clips

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Speaker 2: from it, and they discussed it in the extras on

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Speaker 2: the disc. It would spawn a nineteen forty five sequel,

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Speaker 2: which he also co wrote and directed. In the twenty

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Speaker 2: eleven documentary Kursawa's Way on the Criterion Collection disc, they

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Speaker 2: point out this picture's sublime portrayal of action. So it's

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Speaker 2: a judo film. It's a wrestling picture, but like a

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Speaker 2: serious one, not like a Santo picture or some of

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Speaker 2: the latter, you know, Japanese pro wrestling of pictures and

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Speaker 2: so forth. But the action is really interesting because it

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Speaker 2: has pointed out in this documentary, there's less of a

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Speaker 2: focus on the actual grappling, or certainly the most impactful

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Speaker 2: physical moments of the grappling war on audience responses, audio,

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Speaker 2: emotional responses to the impact. So we won't actually see

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Speaker 2: the impact. We'll see how people respond to it, and

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Speaker 2: then we'll see sort of the results of that impact,

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Speaker 2: which is very interesting. So Kisawa's wartime work included propaganda films,

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Speaker 2: which apparently also included, to varying degrees, the Judo Pictures,

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Speaker 2: especially the sequel. His work during this time sometimes was

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Speaker 2: seen as too Western by sensors, and his nineteen forty

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Speaker 2: five film The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail,

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Speaker 2: a period piece, managed to run a foul of both

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Speaker 2: imperial Japanese sensors and then subsequently American occupation sensors, for

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Speaker 2: being in one case too democratic and then in the

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Speaker 2: other case too feudal. I guess this is often the case.

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Speaker 2: If you're managing to piss everyone off, maybe you're doing

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Speaker 2: something right.

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Speaker 3: Now.

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Speaker 2: We can't walk through every kisaw Will picture, but we

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Speaker 2: might reasonably summarize his post post war work along the

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Speaker 2: stepping stones of No Regrets for Our Youth in forty six,

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Speaker 2: the award winning One Wonderful Sunday from forty six as Well,

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Speaker 2: I Believe, and then nineteen forty eight Drunken Angel, considered

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Speaker 2: by many to be his first major work and his

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Speaker 2: first picture to feature Toshiro Mafuni, who Kurosawa would famously

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Speaker 2: utilize in many of his masterpieces to come, including nineteen

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Speaker 2: fifties Raschaman, which earned him international acclaim, including recognition at

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Speaker 2: the Academy Awards in nineteen fifty two, and from there,

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Speaker 2: Kirasawa went on to write and direct some of the

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Speaker 2: best regarded films in cinema history, including but not limited to,

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Speaker 2: fifty four to seven Samurai, fifty seven's Throwne of Blood,

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Speaker 2: fifty eight's The Hidden Fortress, sixty one's Yojimbo, sixty threes,

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Speaker 2: High and Low, nineteen eighties Kejimusha, The Shadow Warrior, and

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Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five's Ron. These decades entailed various ups and

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Speaker 2: down industry changes, some unsuccessful Hollywood projects, most notably Runaway Train,

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Speaker 2: which would ultimately be directed by another director nineteen eighty five,

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Speaker 2: various setbacks and excursion of the Soviet Union to shoot

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy five's durso Uzala, and a comeback partially produced

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Speaker 2: by influential American directors who he had heavily influenced himself.

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Speaker 2: And this was increasingly important as Japanese studios were in

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Speaker 2: this time less likely to back him, and so he

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Speaker 2: was increasingly turning to outside and foreign financers. And certainly

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Speaker 2: that's the case with Dreams.

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

396
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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 2: Yeah, yeah, I've read. I was looking at like some

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Speaker 2: contemporary Ebert reviews talking about like what happens when you

400
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Speaker 2: have like a master who you know, keeps doing their

401
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Speaker 2: own thing, but you know, doesn't necessarily it is not

402
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Speaker 2: necessarily chasing what the audience wants. Then maybe some of that.

403
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Speaker 2: I was looking at some information about how this film

404
00:23:00,359 --> 00:23:03,040
Speaker 2: Dreams was received, and I've seen it described as kind

405
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Speaker 2: of like a largely muted response both domestically and internationally.

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Speaker 2: But at the same time, there was like a lot

407
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Speaker 2: of excitement for it, especially among directors who admired his

408
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:18,160
Speaker 2: work so much. And another interesting wrinkle is that apparently,

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Speaker 2: I mean, this comes as a surprise I think for

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Speaker 2: many because I know when I started watching Krosawa films,

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Speaker 2: they were airing i think on Turner Classic Movies and

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Speaker 2: or American Movie Classics. Even it seems weird that they

413
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Speaker 2: would be on American movie class American Movie Classic showed

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Speaker 2: a lot of different films, but at any rate, I

415
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Speaker 2: had ready access to them on television on cable, and nowadays,

416
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Speaker 2: you know, you have all these excellent criterion collection editions.

417
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Speaker 2: But apparently for a while they weren't all necessarily available

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Speaker 2: on home video, with the exception of Dreams because of

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Speaker 2: the Warner Brothers connection.

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Speaker 3: Oh I see.

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Speaker 2: So even if the initial response was kind of muted,

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Speaker 2: more and more people had the opportunity to Sea Dreams,

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Speaker 2: and of course it gradually earned it more of a following,

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Speaker 2: and I think is also seen as this interesting outlier

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Speaker 2: in Corosawa's filmography. You know, there's nothing else quite like

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Speaker 2: it among his other titles.

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Speaker 3: My general impression is that a lot of critics don't

428
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Speaker 3: put it at like his in his top tier list,

429
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Speaker 3: you know, it's not in a lot of people's top

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00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:25,919
Speaker 3: five Corosawa movies or whatever, but that it is nowadays

431
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:26,960
Speaker 3: widely respected.

432
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:30,320
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's one of those filmographers though, right

433
00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:32,640
Speaker 2: where it's like, if you're talking about the seventh best

434
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:36,159
Speaker 2: Carrosawa film, you're still talking about a great motion picture.

435
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:36,720
Speaker 3: Yeah. So.

436
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:40,760
Speaker 2: Krissawa was honored at the sixty second Academy Awards in

437
00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety and he went on to complete two more films,

438
00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one's Rhapsody in August and nineteen ninety three's Maddeo.

439
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 2: He was working on The Sea Is Watching in nineteen

440
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:53,159
Speaker 2: ninety five, when he apparently suffered a fall, leaving him

441
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:56,480
Speaker 2: unabuilt to direct, and his health rapidly declined in the

442
00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 2: following years, and he passed away in nineteen ninety eight.

443
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 2: The Sea Is Watching would ultimately be made in two

444
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 2: thousand and two by a different director, among a couple

445
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:07,879
Speaker 2: of other posthumous screenplay credits. Now, to come back to

446
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:09,439
Speaker 2: something I was talking about here earlier, one of the

447
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:12,480
Speaker 2: things driven home by numerous Japanese and international directors in

448
00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 2: Kursaw was way the documentary is that he is really

449
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:19,680
Speaker 2: the epitome of a director's director. I imagine you could

450
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:21,200
Speaker 2: take that a step further now and say that he's

451
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:24,639
Speaker 2: a director's director's director, or to that effect.

452
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 3: Meaning he is appreciated, especially by other practitioners of the

453
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:32,679
Speaker 3: art form, not just by audiences, but especially like people

454
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 3: who make films really admire the way he makes films.

455
00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:39,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems really difficult to overstress his influence on

456
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:42,880
Speaker 2: modern cinema and directors around the world, Directors who would

457
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 2: often and continue to analyze every minute detail of how

458
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:50,199
Speaker 2: his direction of actors, lighting, framing, use of space and

459
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:53,160
Speaker 2: everything else came together on the screen and it can

460
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 2: almost be invisible, I think to many of us, because

461
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 2: if you're watching a Krosawa film, I mean, its magic

462
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 2: is going to work on you. You are going to

463
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:04,160
Speaker 2: You're not going to necessarily unless you're, you know, making

464
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:06,160
Speaker 2: an effort to You're just it's going to. Its spell

465
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 2: is going to work. You're not going to be maybe

466
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 2: thinking about how he's shooting everything. Because in part of it, too,

467
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 2: I think, is because he was so influential, many of

468
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 2: the things he did simply became more or less standards

469
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:19,159
Speaker 2: of filmmaking.

470
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's true that a lot of times

471
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 3: good technical directing does not really call attention to itself.

472
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 3: It manifests in utter absorption in the narrative and content.

473
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:31,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so you're.

474
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 3: Watching seven Samurai, you might not be thinking a lot

475
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 3: about the you know, how every shot is being framed

476
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:39,879
Speaker 3: and how he captures movement and light and stuff, But

477
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:43,680
Speaker 3: you know that your attention is held very closely, and

478
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 3: that's sort of like how it comes through to the

479
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:46,840
Speaker 3: average viewer.

480
00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 2: Absolutely. All right, let's move on to some other folks

481
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:53,440
Speaker 2: involved in this picture with with less detail we've covered

482
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:57,360
Speaker 2: the big one here, of course, is Shuro Honda. Who

483
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 2: lived nineteen eleven through nineteen ninety three. Famed director of Godzilla,

484
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:04,880
Speaker 2: who we've discussed in the show I think three different times,

485
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:08,200
Speaker 2: most recently in our discussion of nineteen sixty four's matha

486
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 2: Versus Godzilla. He was a creative consultant on this picture.

487
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:14,239
Speaker 3: I think I read that especially his experience in the

488
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 3: military was used to choreograph the sequence called the Tunnel

489
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:22,400
Speaker 3: where we see military, we see army members marching information.

490
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:27,200
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And also, you know, I have to say

491
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,480
Speaker 2: that the Mount Fuji segment also feels very Honda like.

492
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:33,200
Speaker 2: You can imagine him at least standing in the background

493
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,879
Speaker 2: nodding and being like, yep, you've nailed at Krisawa on

494
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 2: that one, all right. Getting into the actors here, starting

495
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 2: with the Dreamer, generally credited as I because we keep

496
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 2: having that dead for us, where we read the words

497
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:52,679
Speaker 2: I had another dream, and then here's our dreamer, our

498
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:56,640
Speaker 2: dream walker. I. Our Dreamer is played by Akira Tera

499
00:27:56,720 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 2: Hope born nineteen forty seven. Born into successful acting family.

500
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:03,880
Speaker 2: He's also a musician, having been in the nineteen sixties

501
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 2: band The Savage Joe. I included an album cover from

502
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:12,239
Speaker 2: The Savage They don't look very savage. They look just

503
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 2: like some very clean cut guys here. Yeah, they look

504
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 2: like they're they're ready to head down to the sokop. Yeah.

505
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 2: But he subsequently launched a successful solo career, and I

506
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 2: think in this he took on a more edgy persona

507
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 2: and often had kind of like a like a nihilistic

508
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 2: kind of like dressed in black, wearing sunglasses thing going.

509
00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:35,640
Speaker 3: On, holding a twelve string guitar, looking like nothing matters.

510
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, successful musician, award winning musician, and then

511
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 2: as an actor. He debuted in nineteen sixty eight The

512
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 2: Sands of Krobi and later appeared in Karasawa was Ron.

513
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:51,960
Speaker 2: He's also in nineteen ninety six's Rebirth of Mathra and

514
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 2: two thousand and four's cas hern This is one Caserne

515
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 2: is not. I haven't seen either of these two films, actually,

516
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 2: but cass Herne is one that I've seen get video

517
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:03,560
Speaker 2: stores for years because it has some sort of like

518
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 2: a space ninja on it. I don't know much about it.

519
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 2: If you out there are fans, write in and tell

520
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 2: me all about it.

521
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 3: You know. I was gonna say in talking about the

522
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 3: themes of the film that one of them is the

523
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 3: self as both fluid and constant. The protagonist in each

524
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 3: of these dreams, I think you could say, is the

525
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 3: same person and yet is also quite different and both

526
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 3: in terms of apparent life history, some aspects of personality

527
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 3: seem to change. Sometimes the protagonist is assertive, sometimes the

528
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 3: protagonist is quite passive. That just varies a lot between

529
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 3: the segments, and there's no narrative continuity between them, but

530
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 3: there is a kind of thematic continuity, like the segments

531
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 3: are strung together by associations and preoccupations rather than causality.

532
00:29:57,840 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 3: And so this was making me think. I was trying

533
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 3: to the performance, like, do the events of one dream

534
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 3: at all affect the protagonist in a different dream? And

535
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 3: I think you could see it going both ways, Like

536
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 3: the events of the movie never seem to be literally additive,

537
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 3: and yet they may be kind of like the other

538
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:21,920
Speaker 3: dreams are kind of stirring in the memory of the

539
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 3: protagonist in the other segments. You know, I don't know

540
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 3: exactly how you would read that into Tara Oh's performance here,

541
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 3: but that does feel right. It feels like it's part

542
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 3: of his story that there is I don't know, somehow,

543
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 3: like not complete conscious knowledge of what was dreamt in

544
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 3: the other dreams, but a kind of vague sense of

545
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:44,040
Speaker 3: I've had a feeling like this before.

546
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean that's the way it often feels

547
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 2: with dreams. You know, you might bring the content of

548
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 2: one dream into the next. And also, at least in

549
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 2: my own experience, like, sometimes you're you, and the dreams

550
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 2: sometimes you're less you. And then so I feel like

551
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 2: this character is you know sometimes you know. I think

552
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 2: in general we can think of him as a Krosawa

553
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 2: stand in. Sometimes he's more of a voyeuristic figure or

554
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:11,520
Speaker 2: even an avatar by which we experience the dream, though

555
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 2: his role is more personal and intense in certain segments,

556
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 2: namely the Tunnel, which we'll get to.

557
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, I certainly had the Tunnel in mind for

558
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 3: his more like assertive and active roles. But almost always,

559
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:29,560
Speaker 3: and I guess this is often true of dreams, he's

560
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 3: more reacting than acting on the world, and often reacting

561
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:35,959
Speaker 3: with a kind of futility. Yeah.

562
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, Because again, there's all these or most of these dreams,

563
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 2: if not all of them, they begin with the sense

564
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 2: of being trapped in something like we're maybe not trapped

565
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 2: trapped is too strong a word, too nightmarish, like you know,

566
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 2: in the texture of dreams, like sometimes you're just there

567
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,160
Speaker 2: and you're a part of it. I don't know, it's

568
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 2: hard to really state it, but anyway, yeah, I liked

569
00:31:57,040 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 2: his performance. It kind of the exact details of it

570
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 2: change from sequence to sequence, and then to be clear,

571
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 2: in subsequences. I the Dreamer is played by a child

572
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 2: a couple of different actors I believe, Mitsunori Issaki born

573
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 2: seventy seven, and then another actor by the name of

574
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:19,080
Speaker 2: Toshiko Nakano playing younger versions of the Dreamer.

575
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 3: I think you could argue that the segments of the

576
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 3: film are roughly chronological in terms of the protagonists age.

577
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 3: I don't know if exactly, but like the first one,

578
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 3: the protagonist is the youngest, the second one, he's the

579
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 3: second youngest, and then becomes an adult, and it does

580
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 3: seem to progress through a kind of maturity arc in

581
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:39,040
Speaker 3: life from there.

582
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe so, all right, Rolling through some of

583
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:47,360
Speaker 2: the other performances here, of note, we have Metsuko Basho

584
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 2: as the Dreamer's mother in the first sequence born nineteen

585
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:54,320
Speaker 2: forty six, Japanese Academy Award winning actress, whose credits include

586
00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine s Vengeance's Mine, nineteen eighty's Kja Musha,

587
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 2: and a voice roll in two thousand and six is

588
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 2: Tales from Earth. See that's a Goro Miyazaki.

589
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 3: Film adapted from the Ursula of the Win.

590
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 2: Yes, Yes, Yeah, Then of course eventually we're gonna get

591
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:12,480
Speaker 2: our yuki Ono the snow Fairy or the snow Woman

592
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 2: the snow Witch. More on the details of this character

593
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 2: in a bit, but this is of course a yokai

594
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 2: that pops up throughout Japanese media, played here by Miko

595
00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:27,120
Speaker 2: Harada born nineteen fifty eight. She was also coming off

596
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 2: a major role in Kurosawa's Ron, and her other credits

597
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 2: include seventy nine's The Inferno, nineteen eighty eight's Tokyo The

598
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 2: Last Megalopolis. That's one I haven't seen, but that one's

599
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 2: kind of famous for a couple of different reasons, including

600
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 2: the fact that hr Giger designed something for it, twenty

601
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 2: twelve's Helter Skelter, and Oh, I don't know anything about

602
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 2: this one, but sometimes the title just catches you twenty sixteens.

603
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 2: If Katz disappeared from the world, I'm enthralled. I need

604
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 2: to know more about that one, but anyway, she's won

605
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:01,800
Speaker 2: multiple acting award in her native Japan. All right. In

606
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 2: the tunnel sequence, we have a ghostly figure from the

607
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:11,840
Speaker 2: past that shows up, Private Naguchi played by Yoshitaka Sushi

608
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:15,239
Speaker 2: born nineteen fifty five, another Ron cast member who was

609
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 2: also in a number of other pictures, including two other

610
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 2: Kurosawa pictures, sixty five's Red Beard and nineteen seventies Dotsukatton.

611
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:24,719
Speaker 2: Now late in the picture, we're going to have an

612
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:28,480
Speaker 2: old man character who is fabulous, played by Chishu Ryu,

613
00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:31,960
Speaker 2: who lived nineteen oh four through nineteen ninety three. Award

614
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:35,360
Speaker 2: winning and long lasting Japanese actor, his work spans six decades,

615
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 2: and his other credits include Red Beard, nineteen fifty three's

616
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 2: Tokyo Story and nineteen eighty five's Mishima, a Life in

617
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:46,279
Speaker 2: four chapters. He also appeared in Vim Vendors Until the

618
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 2: End of the World in nineteen ninety one.

619
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 3: And in many ways, this old man is kind of

620
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 3: the soul of the movie, especially appearing as he does

621
00:34:53,080 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 3: in the last segment.

622
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:58,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's terrific. I really love this performance. This guy's

623
00:34:58,280 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 2: great and.

624
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:02,799
Speaker 3: He has some opinion. He's of all the segment. He's

625
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:05,120
Speaker 3: just like saying opinions into the camera.

626
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:06,439
Speaker 2: Yes, but he's great.

627
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 3: It's got that quality of like he's old, let him talk.

628
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:12,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I think he may have. I think

629
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 2: this guy speaks more than anyone else in the picture.

630
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 2: I don't know. We get a lot as well from

631
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 2: the Crying Demon. And this character was played by Chosuki Ikaria,

632
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 2: who lived nineteen thirty one through two thousand and four.

633
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:28,440
Speaker 2: His other credits in Beclue, nineteen ninety one's My Son's

634
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:30,759
Speaker 2: and nineteen ninety eight's Base Side Shakedown.

635
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 3: You know, one thing I didn't know about the cast

636
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:35,479
Speaker 3: when I pictured this movie is that it was going

637
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:37,799
Speaker 3: to have Martin Scorsese acting in it.

638
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:42,719
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, playing Vincent van Go. You have legendary

639
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:49,200
Speaker 2: American director and noted Corosala admire. Yeah, he's definitely in

640
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:53,000
Speaker 2: that documentary Krosawa's way talking about his experience on the

641
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:57,440
Speaker 2: film and his admiration for Krosawa's work. And it's interesting because, yeah,

642
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:03,239
Speaker 2: so Scorsese himself an admire of Corosawa and study or

643
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:07,839
Speaker 2: of Corosawa's work here playing a master painter admired by

644
00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 2: the dreamer, and so it's kind of a neat inversion there,

645
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 2: literally following the master into his work here.

646
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah, is it true that he interrupted making Goodfellas

647
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 3: to like fly in to shoot this.

648
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 2: Oh I didn't read that, but that sounds or hear

649
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 2: that in the doc, but that that sounds likely. Yes,

650
00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:32,000
Speaker 2: I mean that's the kind of respect that all of

651
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:33,319
Speaker 2: these directors had for him.

652
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:37,080
Speaker 3: I also found Scorsese's screen presence interesting because he does

653
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 3: not come in the way sometimes like a well known

654
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:45,319
Speaker 3: director cameo and acting can feel where it's like, oh,

655
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's like I'm the big important person

656
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:50,920
Speaker 3: now here. I'm ego crashing into the scene and taking

657
00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:53,840
Speaker 3: it over. He feels very in service of the scene.

658
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 3: He feels it's one of those performances where it feels

659
00:36:56,719 --> 00:36:59,759
Speaker 3: like he is just trying to do what Corrosawa wants

660
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:01,400
Speaker 3: of him and is telling him to do.

661
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:07,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, Martin Scorsese occasionally does these little acting but sometimes

662
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:10,800
Speaker 2: playing a fictional version of himself, sometimes playing a fictional

663
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:15,359
Speaker 2: a different character. But he's generally pretty good. Sometimes it's

664
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:19,920
Speaker 2: certainly a little broader in his performance, but yeah, that's

665
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 2: a good point is he does seem to be essentially

666
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 2: trying to play Vincent van Go here, and I was

667
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:29,759
Speaker 2: also thinking this is also perfect like dream logic, you know,

668
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:32,239
Speaker 2: like I had a dream last night and I was

669
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:34,799
Speaker 2: having a conversation with Vincent van Go, but he was

670
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:37,919
Speaker 2: also somehow Martin Scorsese at the same time. Yes, that's

671
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:42,000
Speaker 2: kind of the vibe here. Another fun little cameo, I

672
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 2: guess would say in that particular segment, the woman in

673
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:50,439
Speaker 2: the fields that the dreamer initially interacts with before being

674
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:52,879
Speaker 2: sent in the direction of Vincent van Go is played

675
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:58,280
Speaker 2: by Catherine Cadau. Kursaw was longtime personal translator and director

676
00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:00,839
Speaker 2: of that twenty eleven documentary Charsawa's Way.

677
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,800
Speaker 3: Oh. Interesting, So she's the one washing washing in the

678
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:07,279
Speaker 3: river who tells him that tells him to stay away

679
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:08,840
Speaker 3: from van Go because he's a madman.

680
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:12,400
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, I just came out of the asylum. Yeah. Oh.

681
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:14,400
Speaker 2: And then getting to the music, the music here is

682
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:20,440
Speaker 2: of course terrific, and the composer credited is Shinichiro Akibi

683
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 2: born nineteen forty three, Japanese composer whose film work includes

684
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:29,640
Speaker 2: Chris always Keji Musha Rhapsody in August and Madeo. His

685
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 2: other scores include TV's Future Boy Conan from nineteen seventy

686
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:37,799
Speaker 2: eight that was an early directorial effort from Hayo Miyazaki,

687
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:41,360
Speaker 2: and two thousand and seven's Glory to the Filmmaker. He

688
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:44,280
Speaker 2: won the Japanese Academy Award for composing multiple times.

689
00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 3: I think in addition to some original compositions, this movie

690
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:52,439
Speaker 3: does also feature some classical compositions. Like I think there's

691
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:56,080
Speaker 3: some Chapan in it and stuff. But yes, the music

692
00:38:56,160 --> 00:39:01,440
Speaker 3: is wonderful special. Oh, it's wonderful throughout, especially thinking of

693
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 3: the mysterious music in the very first segment.

694
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 2: Also, I love the funeral procession music at the end.

695
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:13,120
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, yes, I'm not sure at different points

696
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:15,760
Speaker 2: in the film whether we're looking at the composed score

697
00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 2: or needle drop score, but at any rate, it's all

698
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 2: really good.

699
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:21,879
Speaker 3: Yeah.

700
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:24,160
Speaker 2: Finally, I also want to note that if you start

701
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 2: looking at the special effects credits on this film, you'll

702
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 2: notice a lot of Western names via those connections that

703
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 2: Kurosawa had with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Its industrial

704
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:38,160
Speaker 2: light and magic handling the special effects on this, you know,

705
00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:41,520
Speaker 2: Otherwise Japanese production. Apparently they did this at cost, though

706
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 2: I have to say watching the picture, I mean, it's

707
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 2: not like you really notice. It's not like ILM came

708
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:50,400
Speaker 2: in and made all the Fox people look like wookies

709
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 2: or anything. I don't know. It's like the effects are

710
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 2: I guess, really good and often invisible.

711
00:39:56,440 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 3: They're very organic. Yeah. Yeah, the effects feel almost humble

712
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 3: in a way. Does that make sense, not flashy, just

713
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:07,879
Speaker 3: kind of manifesting. I don't know.

714
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:11,560
Speaker 2: Yeah. There is some behind the scenes footage on the

715
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 2: Criterion collection just showing Carosawa directing the scenes where we

716
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:19,000
Speaker 2: have the makeup effects for the Fox people as well

717
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:23,520
Speaker 2: as the hornet demons, and you know, he's he seems

718
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 2: to be like, you know, sort of tweaking things a

719
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:27,239
Speaker 2: little bit, and in the case of the demons, saying like,

720
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 2: let's tone it down a little bit, like essentially they

721
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:33,000
Speaker 2: look too much like monsters. We want we want the

722
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:37,319
Speaker 2: viewers to understand that these are humans. So I get

723
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:40,120
Speaker 2: the impression that carasaw will, maybe even's head of them,

724
00:40:40,120 --> 00:40:43,839
Speaker 2: scale back a little bit on things, because you know,

725
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 2: often I think it's the case in this picture that

726
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 2: otherworldly beings they do have a kind of like stage presence,

727
00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:55,360
Speaker 2: Like they certainly come off like human beings in makeup,

728
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:57,759
Speaker 2: and there's not there. There doesn't seem to be an

729
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:02,400
Speaker 2: overt attempt to portray them as overtly otherworldly beings, Like

730
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:04,799
Speaker 2: there's a humanity to them that I guess is essential here.

731
00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:17,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's right. Should we jump into the plot.

732
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:17,960
Speaker 2: Let's do it?

733
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:21,719
Speaker 3: Okay? So, as I mentioned, there are these eight segments.

734
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:23,399
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about some of them, I think,

735
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:26,680
Speaker 3: in more detail than others. I wanted to start off

736
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:29,800
Speaker 3: talking about the first one. I love all the segments

737
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:32,400
Speaker 3: in this movie, but the very first one is probably

738
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:34,880
Speaker 3: my favorite. So I want to kind of look at

739
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:37,000
Speaker 3: it in some detail. And this is the one called

740
00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:41,919
Speaker 3: Sunshine through the Rain. So it begins with a young

741
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:44,640
Speaker 3: boy coming out the front door of his house looking

742
00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 3: like he wants to go play outside. But just as

743
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 3: he is heading out, it starts to rain. And I

744
00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 3: don't know, somehow that beginning in itself, even before we

745
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 3: really are thinking of this as a dream, that's so

746
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:02,040
Speaker 3: evocative of childchildhood, you know, the feeling of wanting to

747
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 3: go outside and play and it starts raining, Or at

748
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 3: least it was for me. I don't know that that

749
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:10,279
Speaker 3: feels like such a familiar and cutting kind of frustration.

750
00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:14,319
Speaker 3: So the boy, he's come out the door of his house,

751
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:17,120
Speaker 3: but he stands under an archway in the gate that

752
00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 3: goes around the outside of the home, and he's watching

753
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 3: the rain come down, and it is a sunshower, so

754
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 3: the sun is shining even though there is precipitation. And

755
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:30,800
Speaker 3: then from the background, we see the boy's mother emerge

756
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:33,280
Speaker 3: from the house and she hurries out into the courtyard

757
00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:35,960
Speaker 3: to gather some baskets of something. I think maybe she

758
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:38,959
Speaker 3: was drying some kind of food items in the sun

759
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:41,640
Speaker 3: or something. And she's pulling the baskets inside, and she

760
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 3: calls out to the boy and she says, you're staying home.

761
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:48,719
Speaker 3: The sun is shining, but it's raining. Foxes hold their

762
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:52,440
Speaker 3: wedding processions in this weather and they don't like anyone

763
00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 3: to see them. If you do, they'll be very angry.

764
00:42:56,120 --> 00:43:00,800
Speaker 3: And she runs back inside. So actually, maybe here should

765
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 3: we do a little sidebar on the folklore of the

766
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:07,800
Speaker 3: Kitsuni no yumeiri. This is the fox's wedding.

767
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:12,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Katsuni we've discussed on the show before. We're

768
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:15,000
Speaker 2: talking about fox spirits In Japanese traditions, so yo kai

769
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:20,120
Speaker 2: with supernatural abilities often depicted as tricksters, though in this

770
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 2: case not so much tricksters and more in line with

771
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:27,440
Speaker 2: sort of global traditions of like fairy folk of the

772
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:30,720
Speaker 2: unseen world who are out there going through their rights

773
00:43:30,719 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 2: and observations, and sometimes humans can see into their world,

774
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:37,400
Speaker 2: but perhaps at their peril.

775
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:39,920
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it.

776
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:44,640
Speaker 3: So he's received this warning, but the young boy, he

777
00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:47,960
Speaker 3: is maybe not deterred. He looks out at the downpour.

778
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:50,440
Speaker 3: He stands there and stares for a bit, and then

779
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 3: he wanders off into the forest.

780
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:55,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean mom's warning here was kind of asking

781
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:58,239
Speaker 2: for it, like, don't go outside now because there are

782
00:43:58,280 --> 00:43:59,560
Speaker 2: fox spirits out there.

783
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:06,799
Speaker 3: You might see something amazing. Yeah, And I love the

784
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:10,360
Speaker 3: scene in the forest here. So the forest is eerie

785
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:15,840
Speaker 3: and just pulsing with magic. So the trees are enormous.

786
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:17,880
Speaker 3: We don't see really the tops of the trees. We

787
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:22,000
Speaker 3: just see these column like trunks, and the ground is

788
00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 3: covered in sprouting plants with long green leaves that come

789
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 3: up to the boy's waist, and we can see sheets

790
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:33,760
Speaker 3: of rain and mist are billowing sideways through the gaps

791
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 3: between the trees, and then you can also see individual

792
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:40,800
Speaker 3: shafts of sunlight crossing down through holes in the canopy,

793
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 3: and all this together makes the air appear to have

794
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 3: a kind of silky, shimmering texture. It's so beautiful and

795
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 3: it looks like a place absolutely where magic happens. And

796
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:55,560
Speaker 3: as we watch the scene, there is just this mounting

797
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 3: sense of the strange and unreal. For example, one thing,

798
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:02,000
Speaker 3: you see a close up of the boy who is

799
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 3: he's walking silently through the woods. He's looking around, not

800
00:45:05,120 --> 00:45:09,279
Speaker 3: saying anything, and I noticed he's dry. It's raining, but

801
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:14,359
Speaker 3: he's not wet. There's no music, no talking, just this

802
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:17,720
Speaker 3: kind of soft skittering sound of rain on the leaves,

803
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:21,160
Speaker 3: and the boy just keeps looking around, wide eyed, like

804
00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:24,959
Speaker 3: he is expecting to see something. And then he does

805
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:28,839
Speaker 3: see something. There's a bank of white mist, and through

806
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:32,840
Speaker 3: it he sees the outline of a shrine carved in stone.

807
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:37,520
Speaker 3: And then slowly music begins. We hear drums and a

808
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 3: wood block and a flute playing a slow, mysterious melody.

809
00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:45,880
Speaker 3: The rhythm on the drums in the woodblocks is also

810
00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:51,319
Speaker 3: kind of slow and stuttering, and over the background of

811
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:55,960
Speaker 3: this music, the boy watches a procession of figures slowly

812
00:45:56,040 --> 00:46:00,640
Speaker 3: marching out of the fog. They are human dancer in

813
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 3: fox makeup rob as you were saying there, they're distinctly

814
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:06,160
Speaker 3: human in forms, so they didn't try to make them

815
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:10,759
Speaker 3: quadrupedal or anything. They're standing upright basically human, but their

816
00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 3: faces are painted a rosy white color, with red fur

817
00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:19,400
Speaker 3: over their noses and cheeks, and they have whiskers. The

818
00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:22,319
Speaker 3: women are wearing veils over their heads, and the men

819
00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 3: wear a sort of disc shaped hat. The first two

820
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:29,480
Speaker 3: men in the procession are carrying these cylindrical objects. I'm

821
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:31,200
Speaker 3: not sure what these are, but they might be some

822
00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:35,400
Speaker 3: form of paper lantern. I know that fox wedding processions

823
00:46:35,400 --> 00:46:38,880
Speaker 3: in folklore are sometimes said to be carrying paper lanterns

824
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:40,680
Speaker 3: like you can see them as dancing lights.

825
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:43,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's what this is supposed to be.

826
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 3: And their style of dancing is so interesting and evocative.

827
00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:51,320
Speaker 3: There are these slow, almost glacial movements as they march along,

828
00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:55,040
Speaker 3: and then sudden moves where they bend and twist and

829
00:46:55,120 --> 00:46:58,400
Speaker 3: assume a pose, all looking in the same direction. I

830
00:46:58,440 --> 00:47:02,080
Speaker 3: think this is supposed to evoke when a wild animal

831
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 3: senses your presence or gets spooked and then suddenly like

832
00:47:06,320 --> 00:47:09,239
Speaker 3: flinches and freezes looking at you. Did you take the

833
00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:09,960
Speaker 3: same thing from it?

834
00:47:10,080 --> 00:47:12,400
Speaker 2: Rob, That's a good point, you know. I don't think

835
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:14,319
Speaker 2: I've literally put that together when I was watching it,

836
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:17,359
Speaker 2: but I think it's a great read. I will note

837
00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:19,759
Speaker 2: that this is definitely one of the many sequences in

838
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:22,000
Speaker 2: the picture that feels like it could possibly go on

839
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:25,239
Speaker 2: forever in a good way, in that dream sense where

840
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:28,879
Speaker 2: it's like this is this is happening, and and you're

841
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:32,240
Speaker 2: just in it. You know, who knows if the dream

842
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 2: is going to is going to continue on to some

843
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:38,080
Speaker 2: point of emotional upwelling, though of course it will in

844
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:38,840
Speaker 2: this case.

845
00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 3: Lost time, very little consciousness of past or future. You're

846
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:46,359
Speaker 3: just you're just stuck in this moment. And the boy

847
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 3: is watching this procession from behind a tree. He's very cautious.

848
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:53,239
Speaker 3: He's trying to hide, and the dancers keep stopping and

849
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:56,240
Speaker 3: suddenly looking in his direction, but at first he stays

850
00:47:56,320 --> 00:48:00,840
Speaker 3: hidden until the last time they stop and sudden he's caught.

851
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 3: They all turn and look at him, and the boy

852
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:04,959
Speaker 3: panics and runs away back home.

853
00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:10,080
Speaker 2: This is not played for horror or anything but and

854
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:13,920
Speaker 2: again the makeup is is subtle, and it's definitely holding back,

855
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:17,200
Speaker 2: but it is a frightening sequence in its own way,

856
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:20,200
Speaker 2: Like that, you know, the child has seen into a

857
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:23,600
Speaker 2: world he should not bear witness too, and they have

858
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:25,479
Speaker 2: looked back and seen him as well.

859
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 3: But when he gets home, the danger is not over.

860
00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:31,440
Speaker 3: Actually that you might think, Okay, he's escaped, he's back

861
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 3: home now. When he gets back to the house, he

862
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 3: finds his mother waiting for him at the front gate,

863
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:41,439
Speaker 3: and she's looking very stern, and he approaches her kind

864
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:44,960
Speaker 3: of bashfully, like he knows he's done something wrong. But

865
00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:48,320
Speaker 3: she does not comfort him. Her face is very stiff

866
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:52,239
Speaker 3: and her expression is cold, and she says, you saw it,

867
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:56,960
Speaker 3: didn't you. You saw something you shouldn't have. I can't

868
00:48:57,000 --> 00:49:00,880
Speaker 3: have such a child in my house. And angry fox

869
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:05,279
Speaker 3: came looking for you. He left this, And then from

870
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:10,359
Speaker 3: a pouch in her sleeve, the mother produces a tonto knife.

871
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:13,239
Speaker 3: The boy takes it and he pulls the knife from

872
00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:16,760
Speaker 3: the sheath and the mother says, you're to a tone

873
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:21,440
Speaker 3: by cutting your belly open. And I was like, WHOA.

874
00:49:21,560 --> 00:49:24,400
Speaker 3: That hits hard because this is a little child. This

875
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 3: is not like a you know, not even like an

876
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 3: like the little kid, and it hits hard. But this

877
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:35,760
Speaker 3: to me felt so real as a child's dream turning

878
00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 3: into a nightmare. It is so much more unacceptably threatening

879
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:45,879
Speaker 3: and dangerous than adults like to imagine children's dreams are.

880
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:48,360
Speaker 3: But this is, I mean, this is what I remember

881
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:51,680
Speaker 3: children's dreams being like that. There's a way that the

882
00:49:51,760 --> 00:49:56,080
Speaker 3: child's mind is sort of uncensored. It is it like

883
00:49:56,160 --> 00:49:59,959
Speaker 3: it goes to much more bold and horrible and frightening place,

884
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:03,000
Speaker 3: says than adults want a child's mind to go to.

885
00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:06,160
Speaker 3: And this felt like a real dream in multiple ways,

886
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 3: with like the you know, the threat that you have

887
00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 3: to cut your own belly open, but also in the

888
00:50:11,960 --> 00:50:14,640
Speaker 3: in the way that the mother is not comforting, like

889
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:18,160
Speaker 3: he's done something bad and the mother has become alien

890
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:19,480
Speaker 3: and threatening to him.

891
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:20,560
Speaker 2: Yeah.

892
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:23,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, But then here in the dream, the mother offers

893
00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 3: an alternative. She says, she says, go quickly and ask

894
00:50:27,640 --> 00:50:31,200
Speaker 3: their forgiveness. Give that back to them, talking about the knife,

895
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:33,840
Speaker 3: give that back to them, and beg for your life

896
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:37,520
Speaker 3: on your knees. And then the mother literally turns her

897
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:39,719
Speaker 3: back on the boy. She turns her back on him

898
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:42,480
Speaker 3: and goes inside and starts to close the gate in

899
00:50:42,560 --> 00:50:46,160
Speaker 3: her son's face. And as she's closing the doors of

900
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:49,200
Speaker 3: the gate, she says, they rarely forgive even trivial things.

901
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 3: You must go prepared to die for your sin. And

902
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:55,600
Speaker 3: then as the gate is almost nearly shut all the way,

903
00:50:55,680 --> 00:50:58,480
Speaker 3: she says that until they forgive him, she can't let

904
00:50:58,520 --> 00:51:01,520
Speaker 3: him back in. And then finally the boy speaks. He

905
00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:04,279
Speaker 3: pleads that he doesn't know where their home is, but

906
00:51:04,320 --> 00:51:07,360
Speaker 3: the mother says, of course you do. Their home is

907
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:11,120
Speaker 3: beneath the rainbow. And so now we and the gate shuts,

908
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:14,480
Speaker 3: and so, now afraid and alone, the boy sets out

909
00:51:14,480 --> 00:51:17,640
Speaker 3: again into the woods with the deadly knife in his hands,

910
00:51:18,080 --> 00:51:21,239
Speaker 3: and eventually he comes to a clearing and it's a

911
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:26,560
Speaker 3: meadow full of flowers. It's just huge mass of flowers,

912
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:31,960
Speaker 3: millions of flowers, all in bloom in spring colors yellow, white, pink,

913
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:36,200
Speaker 3: and violet, and this mysterious music swells and then we

914
00:51:36,200 --> 00:51:38,960
Speaker 3: can see the boy from behind. This is probably the

915
00:51:39,000 --> 00:51:42,080
Speaker 3: most iconic shot from the film. The boy is now

916
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:46,200
Speaker 3: entering a narrow valley framed by dark mountains, and in

917
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:51,040
Speaker 3: the middle ground there there's the meadow of the spring flowers,

918
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:54,600
Speaker 3: and a rainbow bends over the field. And this has

919
00:51:54,680 --> 00:51:57,760
Speaker 3: got to be the most beautiful and certainly the most

920
00:51:57,920 --> 00:52:00,480
Speaker 3: frightening use of a rainbow in a film that I

921
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:02,759
Speaker 3: can think of, because it's a rainbow that's obviously not

922
00:52:02,920 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 3: just a disconnected vision that is pretty to look at,

923
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:09,920
Speaker 3: as rainbows are often in movies. This is a place,

924
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:14,600
Speaker 3: and it is the spectral castle of the vengeful Fox Spirits.

925
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:18,720
Speaker 3: And the boy stands there facing the rainbow. He's clutching

926
00:52:18,719 --> 00:52:22,080
Speaker 3: the knife. He is amazed and afraid, and he begins

927
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:24,839
Speaker 3: again to walk to its center, and the music is

928
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:28,440
Speaker 3: swelling up with these ominous notes on the woodwinds and

929
00:52:28,480 --> 00:52:32,200
Speaker 3: then fade to black. Yeah, and that's the end, So

930
00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:35,920
Speaker 3: we never see him face the fox Spirits. In the

931
00:52:35,960 --> 00:52:39,239
Speaker 3: true essence of a dream, these vignettes often begin in

932
00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:41,319
Speaker 3: the middle of the action, or begin with a kind

933
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:45,239
Speaker 3: of unexplained arrival, and they often stop right in the

934
00:52:45,239 --> 00:52:47,719
Speaker 3: middle of the story as well, usually right as the

935
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:49,800
Speaker 3: tension is kind of rising to its peak.

936
00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:52,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's the way it often is in dreams.

937
00:52:52,600 --> 00:52:54,799
Speaker 2: How how many times have any of you ever had

938
00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:57,200
Speaker 2: a dream that finished had a third act you know,

939
00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:00,279
Speaker 2: sometimes I guess that's the case, but generally it's like

940
00:53:00,360 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 2: things kind of peter out or shift. And yeah, I agree,

941
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:07,440
Speaker 2: very strong opening segment here. I agree on the danger

942
00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:10,959
Speaker 2: and seriousness of children's dreams displayed here, and it seems

943
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 2: a fitting way too, to look at the way that

944
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 2: children are you eventually thrust, maybe without warning, into you know,

945
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:21,080
Speaker 2: out of their lives of protected curiosity and into a

946
00:53:21,120 --> 00:53:24,880
Speaker 2: more serious world of reality. Though of course in this

947
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:29,160
Speaker 2: case it's it's it's not quite reality. It's a supernatural threat.

948
00:53:29,239 --> 00:53:32,400
Speaker 2: But still it's like his world of just sort of

949
00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:37,280
Speaker 2: play and curiosity has suddenly taken this sharp turn into

950
00:53:38,400 --> 00:53:40,040
Speaker 2: a into threatening confines.

951
00:53:40,360 --> 00:53:42,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with all that, and I just love

952
00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 3: so many things about this opening. The way it captures

953
00:53:45,560 --> 00:53:49,160
Speaker 3: this authentic feeling of a child's imagination and dream world,

954
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:53,840
Speaker 3: the way that there is a thin line between beauty

955
00:53:53,880 --> 00:53:57,799
Speaker 3: and amazement and absolute horror, and that the way the

956
00:53:57,800 --> 00:54:00,360
Speaker 3: story can just shift back and forth between the or

957
00:54:00,440 --> 00:54:03,000
Speaker 3: kind of capture them both at the same time, especially

958
00:54:03,080 --> 00:54:04,320
Speaker 3: with the image of the rainbow.

959
00:54:04,800 --> 00:54:07,399
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And again you have such an ominous use

960
00:54:07,520 --> 00:54:14,320
Speaker 2: of the rainbow here, This rainbow gait to a certain

961
00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:15,560
Speaker 2: degree of more adult world.

962
00:54:16,239 --> 00:54:18,080
Speaker 3: Okay, do you want to look at the peach orchard?

963
00:54:18,160 --> 00:54:21,520
Speaker 3: The next one in order. So this one also begins

964
00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:23,160
Speaker 3: with a young boy in a house a little bit

965
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:26,319
Speaker 3: older than the boy in the previous dream, and it

966
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:29,480
Speaker 3: starts with him taking a tray of cakes to his

967
00:54:29,520 --> 00:54:34,200
Speaker 3: big sister and her friends. And this episode takes place

968
00:54:34,320 --> 00:54:37,919
Speaker 3: on Hina Matsuri or Doll's Day, also known as Girls' Day.

969
00:54:38,200 --> 00:54:40,319
Speaker 3: I didn't know anything about this beforehand, so I had

970
00:54:40,320 --> 00:54:43,080
Speaker 3: to look it up. But this is a festival celebrated

971
00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:45,560
Speaker 3: at the transition from winter to spring. I think these

972
00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:49,640
Speaker 3: days it's often on March third, where families pray for

973
00:54:49,760 --> 00:54:52,440
Speaker 3: the well being of their daughters. It's sort of a

974
00:54:52,480 --> 00:54:55,400
Speaker 3: health and well being of our Daughter's Day. And the

975
00:54:55,440 --> 00:54:59,040
Speaker 3: festival includes the display of dolls known as Hena Nino

976
00:54:59,239 --> 00:55:03,000
Speaker 3: or Hena doll, which are styled after the imperial court

977
00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:06,239
Speaker 3: of the Hayan period. So the protagonist, the boy, he

978
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:08,879
Speaker 3: brings a tray of goodies to his older sister who

979
00:55:08,960 --> 00:55:11,359
Speaker 3: is with her friends, and they're in a room with

980
00:55:11,480 --> 00:55:15,480
Speaker 3: a tiered display of Hena dolls in the background, and

981
00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:17,520
Speaker 3: the boy stops to look at the dolls and there's

982
00:55:17,600 --> 00:55:21,200
Speaker 3: kind of a strangeness, a music sting that indicates something

983
00:55:21,280 --> 00:55:25,920
Speaker 3: is a little striking or unusual. And then he realizes

984
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 3: that he brought more food to his sister and her

985
00:55:28,120 --> 00:55:31,000
Speaker 3: friends than is needed. He thought that she had five

986
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:33,520
Speaker 3: friends with her, but there are only four friends there now,

987
00:55:34,400 --> 00:55:37,920
Speaker 3: and he insists that he saw another girl with them earlier,

988
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:39,920
Speaker 3: but the sister tells him no, there are no other

989
00:55:39,960 --> 00:55:43,080
Speaker 3: girls here. He is being strange. But then he sees

990
00:55:43,120 --> 00:55:46,480
Speaker 3: the girl again. The other girl is dressed in pink

991
00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:49,360
Speaker 3: and white, and she's watching him from the hallway, but

992
00:55:49,480 --> 00:55:51,680
Speaker 3: she disappears when he tries to get his sister to

993
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:52,640
Speaker 3: look and see the.

994
00:55:52,600 --> 00:55:54,640
Speaker 2: Other girl is already a little creepy.

995
00:55:54,920 --> 00:55:59,200
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yes, So he follows the girl in pink out

996
00:55:59,239 --> 00:56:02,560
Speaker 3: through the back door, out into the bamboo forest, all

997
00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:06,479
Speaker 3: the way to a green hillside with tiered terraces, much

998
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:09,600
Speaker 3: like the tiered display with the Hena dolls in the house,

999
00:56:10,120 --> 00:56:13,600
Speaker 3: and the hill is covered in soft grass, and when

1000
00:56:13,600 --> 00:56:16,160
Speaker 3: he arrives at the hillside, he's sort of ambushed by

1001
00:56:16,160 --> 00:56:18,160
Speaker 3: a mass of people. They all come running out on

1002
00:56:18,239 --> 00:56:21,880
Speaker 3: the terraces and they are dressed up like the Hena dolls,

1003
00:56:22,040 --> 00:56:25,160
Speaker 3: but in life size, and I think there's sort of

1004
00:56:25,160 --> 00:56:27,520
Speaker 3: an Emperor doll Man, the leader of them all. He

1005
00:56:27,920 --> 00:56:31,120
Speaker 3: addresses the boy sternly, and he says that they will

1006
00:56:31,160 --> 00:56:34,960
Speaker 3: never return to his house again because his family cut

1007
00:56:35,040 --> 00:56:37,479
Speaker 3: down the peach orchard that used to be on this hill.

1008
00:56:38,400 --> 00:56:40,600
Speaker 3: And he explains that they are the spirits of the

1009
00:56:40,600 --> 00:56:43,840
Speaker 3: peach trees, which are celebrated on the Dolls Day festival.

1010
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:47,799
Speaker 3: And there seems to be kind of an implication that

1011
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:52,200
Speaker 3: because of the family's treachery, they will also withhold their

1012
00:56:52,239 --> 00:56:56,480
Speaker 3: blessings from the family, and the boy begins to cry,

1013
00:56:56,640 --> 00:56:58,600
Speaker 3: and the Emperor yells at him. He tells him it's

1014
00:56:58,640 --> 00:57:02,080
Speaker 3: too late for tears. But then the Queen Doll remembers something.

1015
00:57:02,920 --> 00:57:05,759
Speaker 3: She says, this is the same boy who cried for

1016
00:57:05,840 --> 00:57:08,560
Speaker 3: the trees when they were being cut down. They say

1017
00:57:08,560 --> 00:57:11,000
Speaker 3: they remember he even pleaded with his family not to

1018
00:57:11,040 --> 00:57:13,279
Speaker 3: do it, not to cut down the orchard, and the

1019
00:57:13,320 --> 00:57:15,840
Speaker 3: Emperor at first he scoffs at this. He says that

1020
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:18,040
Speaker 3: was only because the boy knew he would stop getting

1021
00:57:18,040 --> 00:57:20,280
Speaker 3: peaches to eat, and all of the members of the

1022
00:57:20,280 --> 00:57:24,200
Speaker 3: court laugh at him, but the boy protests. He says no,

1023
00:57:24,320 --> 00:57:26,480
Speaker 3: He says you can buy peaches at the store, but

1024
00:57:26,560 --> 00:57:29,360
Speaker 3: where can you buy a whole orchard of trees in bloom.

1025
00:57:29,840 --> 00:57:32,320
Speaker 3: He says he was crying because he loved the trees

1026
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:35,680
Speaker 3: at themselves as living things, and then he starts to

1027
00:57:35,720 --> 00:57:38,960
Speaker 3: cry again. And then the doll people seem sort of ashamed.

1028
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:40,840
Speaker 3: You can see them sort of looking at their feet

1029
00:57:40,920 --> 00:57:45,600
Speaker 3: and hanging their heads. And the emperor accepts the boy's explanation.

1030
00:57:45,720 --> 00:57:47,720
Speaker 3: He says he's a good boy and that he will

1031
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:50,840
Speaker 3: be allowed to see the orchard in bloom one last time.

1032
00:57:51,800 --> 00:57:54,440
Speaker 3: And then there's a dance with all of the figures

1033
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:58,640
Speaker 3: taking place on the terraces, and they perform these choreographed

1034
00:57:58,680 --> 00:58:02,480
Speaker 3: movements to symbolize the flowering of the trees. And then

1035
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:04,320
Speaker 3: at the end of the dance, the boy sees the

1036
00:58:04,360 --> 00:58:08,320
Speaker 3: peach trees blossoming again, and there are petals falling everywhere.

1037
00:58:08,400 --> 00:58:11,200
Speaker 3: He also sees the girl in pink, and he tries

1038
00:58:11,280 --> 00:58:14,080
Speaker 3: to run after her, but suddenly he's back in the

1039
00:58:14,080 --> 00:58:16,320
Speaker 3: real world and all the trees are chopped down. Now

1040
00:58:16,360 --> 00:58:20,400
Speaker 3: they're just bare stumps, all except one. There's one tree

1041
00:58:20,480 --> 00:58:23,680
Speaker 3: that has a limb covered in flowers, kind of bouncing

1042
00:58:23,680 --> 00:58:26,160
Speaker 3: in the wind. And he goes over to it and

1043
00:58:26,200 --> 00:58:31,280
Speaker 3: he looks at it, and the end, what was going

1044
00:58:31,320 --> 00:58:33,200
Speaker 3: to happen next we don't get to see.

1045
00:58:33,440 --> 00:58:35,240
Speaker 2: This is also a strong segment. I mean, like they're

1046
00:58:35,240 --> 00:58:37,600
Speaker 2: all strong. It's not like there's a week one in

1047
00:58:37,640 --> 00:58:42,400
Speaker 2: the bunch. This one maybe hit me. I think is

1048
00:58:42,400 --> 00:58:45,880
Speaker 2: weirder just because I wasn't familiar with the traditions, and

1049
00:58:46,040 --> 00:58:48,000
Speaker 2: also I think my fever might have been spiking a

1050
00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:52,280
Speaker 2: little bit during the sequence as well. But yeah, I

1051
00:58:52,320 --> 00:58:56,120
Speaker 2: also really loved this one. Similar in some ways in

1052
00:58:56,200 --> 00:58:57,600
Speaker 2: theme to the first Sega segment.

1053
00:58:57,920 --> 00:59:00,760
Speaker 3: I thought this one was interesting because the Peach spirits

1054
00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:06,360
Speaker 3: themselves seem to abide by a kind of child's internal logic.

1055
00:59:06,560 --> 00:59:09,600
Speaker 3: The way that they think that he's actually a good

1056
00:59:09,680 --> 00:59:13,600
Speaker 3: boy because he cried because of the trees themselves and

1057
00:59:13,640 --> 00:59:17,240
Speaker 3: not because of just wanting to eat peaches. I don't know.

1058
00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:19,720
Speaker 3: That just feels like such a like a kid's way

1059
00:59:19,760 --> 00:59:30,800
Speaker 3: of thinking about this thing. Yeah, all right. The next

1060
00:59:30,840 --> 00:59:32,600
Speaker 3: segment is the Blizzard. I think we can be a

1061
00:59:32,640 --> 00:59:35,400
Speaker 3: little bit more cursory and talking about this one. Basically,

1062
00:59:35,480 --> 00:59:38,280
Speaker 3: it is four mountain climbers who are going up this mountain.

1063
00:59:38,600 --> 00:59:41,439
Speaker 3: They get hit by this blizzard. They're struggling in the snow.

1064
00:59:41,520 --> 00:59:43,760
Speaker 3: We see for a long time just them fighting against

1065
00:59:43,800 --> 00:59:45,800
Speaker 3: the wind and the snow, trying to make their way

1066
00:59:45,840 --> 00:59:48,680
Speaker 3: up hill but it is and they're trying to make

1067
00:59:48,680 --> 00:59:50,440
Speaker 3: the way to camp, but they can't see which way

1068
00:59:50,480 --> 00:59:53,520
Speaker 3: they're going. There's disagreement about whether they're on the right track,

1069
00:59:54,080 --> 00:59:56,800
Speaker 3: and eventually they begin to sort of get snowed in.

1070
00:59:56,880 --> 00:59:59,960
Speaker 3: They succumb to the snow and they're being covered up

1071
01:00:00,040 --> 01:00:02,400
Speaker 3: and they're freezing, and they sort of settle down, and

1072
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:04,920
Speaker 3: there's the implication that if they do this and they

1073
01:00:04,960 --> 01:00:07,840
Speaker 3: don't reach camp, they're going to die. And then we

1074
01:00:07,880 --> 01:00:11,480
Speaker 3: see things from the perspective of the lead climber. It's

1075
01:00:11,480 --> 01:00:13,000
Speaker 3: sort of the leader of all of them, who's been

1076
01:00:13,040 --> 01:00:16,680
Speaker 3: trying to rally his friends to keep going. We see

1077
01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:20,640
Speaker 3: a figure begins to sort of put blankets over him,

1078
01:00:20,680 --> 01:00:24,400
Speaker 3: these shimmering blankets and shawls that go over his body

1079
01:00:24,640 --> 01:00:28,959
Speaker 3: like layers of snow. And this is from what I've read,

1080
01:00:28,960 --> 01:00:31,720
Speaker 3: this is supposed to be a traditional figure from Japanese

1081
01:00:31,760 --> 01:00:34,760
Speaker 3: folklore known as the yuki onna, which might be like

1082
01:00:34,800 --> 01:00:38,880
Speaker 3: the snow princess or snow fairy, snow witch, something like that,

1083
01:00:38,920 --> 01:00:42,960
Speaker 3: the snow spirit, who I think is often threatening in

1084
01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:45,880
Speaker 3: nature and here or she's ambiguous at first, but then

1085
01:00:46,040 --> 01:00:48,840
Speaker 3: I think by the end we can learn as definitely

1086
01:00:48,880 --> 01:00:49,840
Speaker 3: a threatening figure.

1087
01:00:50,240 --> 01:00:53,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, my understanding is that it does kind of vary. So.

1088
01:00:54,760 --> 01:00:59,720
Speaker 2: Yuki Ona is a pretty famous yokai, generally regarded as

1089
01:00:59,720 --> 01:01:04,440
Speaker 2: a yo kai because she's often more of a personification

1090
01:01:04,800 --> 01:01:08,200
Speaker 2: of the snow or of blizzards, though some tellings depict

1091
01:01:08,200 --> 01:01:10,480
Speaker 2: her as more of a yuri or a ghost that

1092
01:01:10,600 --> 01:01:13,440
Speaker 2: of a woman who died in the snow. As Heroko,

1093
01:01:13,520 --> 01:01:16,080
Speaker 2: Yoda and Matt All discussed in the book Yokai Attack.

1094
01:01:16,600 --> 01:01:18,840
Speaker 2: There as many different versions of this tale, as there

1095
01:01:18,840 --> 01:01:22,120
Speaker 2: are mountains in Japan. The tale of the Yukiyono was

1096
01:01:22,160 --> 01:01:26,439
Speaker 2: famously adapted in the nineteen sixty five film Kaitan, which

1097
01:01:26,440 --> 01:01:30,320
Speaker 2: we might come back to. The core stories involve her

1098
01:01:30,480 --> 01:01:34,200
Speaker 2: sparing a handsome young man during a blizzard like after

1099
01:01:34,320 --> 01:01:39,800
Speaker 2: like brutally killing his compatriots with winter powers, but then

1100
01:01:39,840 --> 01:01:43,480
Speaker 2: sparing him on the condition that he never tell anyone

1101
01:01:43,520 --> 01:01:47,000
Speaker 2: about this, and so the young man survives, and then,

1102
01:01:47,240 --> 01:01:49,000
Speaker 2: as luck would have it, he meets a beautiful young

1103
01:01:49,000 --> 01:01:51,400
Speaker 2: woman the next day. The two fall in love, they're married,

1104
01:01:51,400 --> 01:01:54,720
Speaker 2: they eventually have children, and yet the whole time, this

1105
01:01:54,920 --> 01:01:57,120
Speaker 2: need to tell the story of the woman in the

1106
01:01:57,160 --> 01:02:01,440
Speaker 2: snow steadily builds up inside him, till one day he

1107
01:02:01,520 --> 01:02:05,320
Speaker 2: breaks and he tells his wife about what happened in

1108
01:02:05,360 --> 01:02:08,760
Speaker 2: the snow that day. And I don't want to spoil anything,

1109
01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:13,280
Speaker 2: because it's pretty pretty amazing, but essentially we see the

1110
01:02:13,360 --> 01:02:16,880
Speaker 2: ramifications of him breaking his promise to the YUKIONO.

1111
01:02:17,080 --> 01:02:20,480
Speaker 3: Oh well, the Yukiona in this segment is is quite scary,

1112
01:02:20,520 --> 01:02:26,320
Speaker 3: and eventually though the climber does sort of overcome her influence.

1113
01:02:26,320 --> 01:02:28,440
Speaker 3: She's sort of lulling him to sleep in the snow,

1114
01:02:29,120 --> 01:02:32,560
Speaker 3: and there's one moment when she is sort of defeated

1115
01:02:32,640 --> 01:02:36,280
Speaker 3: or blown away. She turns into some kind of white cloth.

1116
01:02:36,480 --> 01:02:39,520
Speaker 3: It's like a white piece of clothing or flag or something,

1117
01:02:39,520 --> 01:02:43,560
Speaker 3: and just like blows away in the wind. But then

1118
01:02:43,640 --> 01:02:46,160
Speaker 3: the man wakes up after the blizzard is gone, and

1119
01:02:46,200 --> 01:02:49,560
Speaker 3: he sort of tries to he revives his compatriots. I

1120
01:02:49,560 --> 01:02:53,120
Speaker 3: think they're all still alive, and he sort of shakes them,

1121
01:02:53,200 --> 01:02:54,760
Speaker 3: tries to get them to wake up, and then they

1122
01:02:54,800 --> 01:02:57,320
Speaker 3: realize their camp is like right there, they're right beside

1123
01:02:57,360 --> 01:03:00,440
Speaker 3: it and they didn't know because of the storm. A

1124
01:03:00,480 --> 01:03:03,920
Speaker 3: lot of reviewers flag this, I at least from what

1125
01:03:03,960 --> 01:03:06,640
Speaker 3: I've seen online, as their least favorite segment. I think

1126
01:03:06,680 --> 01:03:10,280
Speaker 3: primarily because of how slow and monotonous parts of it are.

1127
01:03:10,360 --> 01:03:13,320
Speaker 3: Like it is very dreamlike in that respect, especially in

1128
01:03:13,360 --> 01:03:15,720
Speaker 3: the first half of them just fighting through the snow

1129
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:19,640
Speaker 3: and the wind is blowing. But I don't know. I

1130
01:03:19,720 --> 01:03:21,800
Speaker 3: like this segment, and I really like the part where

1131
01:03:21,800 --> 01:03:25,040
Speaker 3: the snow witch speaks. You know, when the snow witch

1132
01:03:25,080 --> 01:03:27,680
Speaker 3: comes up over him while he's lying down. She's putting

1133
01:03:27,720 --> 01:03:30,520
Speaker 3: the shawls over him, and there's some kind of modulation

1134
01:03:30,640 --> 01:03:32,640
Speaker 3: on her voice, like it's doubled or something, so it

1135
01:03:32,640 --> 01:03:35,880
Speaker 3: sounds very strange. And you hear her saying, the snow

1136
01:03:36,000 --> 01:03:37,960
Speaker 3: is warm. It's so frightening.

1137
01:03:38,480 --> 01:03:41,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And my understanding is that that this it's

1138
01:03:41,520 --> 01:03:44,960
Speaker 2: sort of like the general vibes of the Yukiona. It's

1139
01:03:45,080 --> 01:03:49,720
Speaker 2: kind of a take on hypothermia and the idea of

1140
01:03:49,760 --> 01:03:53,640
Speaker 2: like giving in to death in the cold snow zihia.

1141
01:03:53,680 --> 01:03:54,800
Speaker 2: It's pretty creepy stuff.

1142
01:03:55,080 --> 01:03:59,440
Speaker 3: The snow is warm. Okay. Next segment is the tunnel.

1143
01:04:00,400 --> 01:04:03,320
Speaker 3: As we explained, this one begins with a military officer

1144
01:04:03,400 --> 01:04:06,160
Speaker 3: walking by himself on an empty road that cuts through

1145
01:04:06,160 --> 01:04:09,040
Speaker 3: the mountains, we somehow understand I think that he is

1146
01:04:09,080 --> 01:04:12,040
Speaker 3: coming home from war. I would guess by his uniform

1147
01:04:12,120 --> 01:04:15,480
Speaker 3: that it's World War two, And he seems weary and

1148
01:04:15,560 --> 01:04:18,160
Speaker 3: beaten down, but he's still kind of clutching a sense

1149
01:04:18,160 --> 01:04:22,160
Speaker 3: of formal dignity, has a kind of headheld high aspect

1150
01:04:22,240 --> 01:04:26,000
Speaker 3: that some of the other characters and protagonists here wouldn't

1151
01:04:26,040 --> 01:04:28,960
Speaker 3: necessarily have. And as he comes up the road, he

1152
01:04:29,120 --> 01:04:32,920
Speaker 3: faces the entrance to a tunnel. It's hard to say

1153
01:04:32,960 --> 01:04:36,120
Speaker 3: exactly why, but there is something really just cursed and

1154
01:04:36,240 --> 01:04:39,240
Speaker 3: ominous about this tunnel. I don't think it's a set

1155
01:04:39,280 --> 01:04:41,440
Speaker 3: made for the film. It looks like it's probably just

1156
01:04:41,480 --> 01:04:43,200
Speaker 3: a real concrete tunnel somewhere.

1157
01:04:43,520 --> 01:04:46,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, but what a location. It's amazing, like just again,

1158
01:04:46,840 --> 01:04:50,000
Speaker 2: so ominous, and you know, it reads on so many levels,

1159
01:04:50,000 --> 01:04:52,680
Speaker 2: like like what is this? Is it a gateway to

1160
01:04:52,800 --> 01:04:57,040
Speaker 2: the underworld? It is nothing else, literally a gateway through

1161
01:04:57,080 --> 01:05:00,280
Speaker 2: the mountain. Yeah, so many ways to take it apart.

1162
01:05:00,240 --> 01:05:03,640
Speaker 3: Don't go in there. But then from inside he hears

1163
01:05:03,720 --> 01:05:06,440
Speaker 3: howling and whimpering, the sounds of a dog, and then

1164
01:05:06,560 --> 01:05:09,440
Speaker 3: a dog runs out of the tunnel, and this is

1165
01:05:09,520 --> 01:05:12,520
Speaker 3: from what I've read, supposed to be an anti tank dog.

1166
01:05:13,400 --> 01:05:17,720
Speaker 3: So it is a dog strapped with timed explosives, which

1167
01:05:17,920 --> 01:05:20,720
Speaker 3: was explored and then there were many of these trained

1168
01:05:20,720 --> 01:05:23,200
Speaker 3: as a weapon by multiple armies in World War Two.

1169
01:05:23,680 --> 01:05:26,880
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how much they were actually used in combat,

1170
01:05:26,920 --> 01:05:29,840
Speaker 3: but they were at least trained. So in this case,

1171
01:05:29,880 --> 01:05:31,680
Speaker 3: it is a dog with a kind of saddle on

1172
01:05:31,760 --> 01:05:34,720
Speaker 3: its back, covered in pockets, and the pockets are stuffed

1173
01:05:34,800 --> 01:05:38,760
Speaker 3: with grenades. It is a bleak and horrifying image.

1174
01:05:39,120 --> 01:05:41,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, and certainly fits with some of the themes explored

1175
01:05:41,840 --> 01:05:46,440
Speaker 2: in the picture about humanity's relationship to nature. Here a

1176
01:05:46,440 --> 01:05:50,800
Speaker 2: great example of nature being twisted beyond mere domestication into

1177
01:05:50,840 --> 01:05:53,080
Speaker 2: actual weaponization. Pretty horrific.

1178
01:05:53,400 --> 01:05:56,360
Speaker 3: So the dog approaches the officer and snarls at him,

1179
01:05:56,360 --> 01:05:59,360
Speaker 3: but does not attack, and then the officer walks on

1180
01:05:59,480 --> 01:06:02,400
Speaker 3: into the tunnnnel, which is cavernous and echoing. We see

1181
01:06:02,400 --> 01:06:06,120
Speaker 3: these tracking, these moving shots going through the tunnel, just

1182
01:06:06,160 --> 01:06:08,280
Speaker 3: looking up at the ceiling of the tunnel as kind

1183
01:06:08,320 --> 01:06:12,520
Speaker 3: of light plays on it as he's walking along, and

1184
01:06:12,640 --> 01:06:16,200
Speaker 3: we can see the officer's breath, we hear his boots

1185
01:06:16,320 --> 01:06:19,000
Speaker 3: kind of clapping and reverberating as he makes his way

1186
01:06:19,400 --> 01:06:21,920
Speaker 3: down to the other end, and then we see at

1187
01:06:21,920 --> 01:06:25,160
Speaker 3: the emerging side of the tunnel the sky is dark

1188
01:06:25,320 --> 01:06:28,520
Speaker 3: blue and illuminated by a red lamp, which I thought

1189
01:06:28,600 --> 01:06:30,840
Speaker 3: was interesting. Kind of reminds me of that Charles Dickens

1190
01:06:30,880 --> 01:06:34,320
Speaker 3: ghost story we talked about last October, the signalman with

1191
01:06:34,520 --> 01:06:37,280
Speaker 3: the ghost or the premonition appearing by the red light

1192
01:06:37,320 --> 01:06:40,080
Speaker 3: at the end of the rail tunnel. And so after

1193
01:06:40,120 --> 01:06:43,439
Speaker 3: the commander comes out the other end of the passage,

1194
01:06:43,480 --> 01:06:48,200
Speaker 3: he stops because he hears steps behind him. Who's that

1195
01:06:49,000 --> 01:06:51,760
Speaker 3: He turns around to see and it is a ghost.

1196
01:06:52,080 --> 01:06:55,680
Speaker 3: It is a soldier in combat uniform with rifle and

1197
01:06:55,760 --> 01:07:02,120
Speaker 3: helmet and his skin painted blue blue fleshed being who

1198
01:07:02,240 --> 01:07:05,320
Speaker 3: should not be and the commander recognizes him. This is

1199
01:07:05,360 --> 01:07:09,560
Speaker 3: someone known to the protagonist. This is Private Naguchi, but

1200
01:07:10,000 --> 01:07:14,520
Speaker 3: Private Naguchi was killed in action and Noguchi is confused.

1201
01:07:14,640 --> 01:07:19,160
Speaker 3: He believes maybe he is still alive. He remembers going

1202
01:07:19,280 --> 01:07:22,560
Speaker 3: home after the war and being given rice cakes by

1203
01:07:22,560 --> 01:07:25,840
Speaker 3: his mother, remembers being comforted by his mother, but the

1204
01:07:25,880 --> 01:07:29,200
Speaker 3: commander has to explain to him, no, that was a

1205
01:07:29,320 --> 01:07:31,960
Speaker 3: dream you had. This is a dream about you know,

1206
01:07:32,000 --> 01:07:34,400
Speaker 3: the dreams of others. That was a dream you had.

1207
01:07:34,560 --> 01:07:37,840
Speaker 3: You were shot in battle and you passed out, and

1208
01:07:37,880 --> 01:07:39,880
Speaker 3: you woke up, and you told me you had that

1209
01:07:40,000 --> 01:07:42,080
Speaker 3: dream where you went home and saw your mother and

1210
01:07:42,120 --> 01:07:44,480
Speaker 3: she gave you rice cakes. Then you died in my

1211
01:07:44,640 --> 01:07:48,240
Speaker 3: arms a few minutes later, and Noguchi is so confused.

1212
01:07:48,280 --> 01:07:51,480
Speaker 3: He's he points out a light in the mountains beyond

1213
01:07:51,520 --> 01:07:54,360
Speaker 3: and he says, that's that's my parents' home, that house

1214
01:07:54,440 --> 01:07:57,840
Speaker 3: right there where the light is. But the commander argues

1215
01:07:57,880 --> 01:08:00,200
Speaker 3: with him. He tells him that he has to act up,

1216
01:08:00,240 --> 01:08:02,840
Speaker 3: that he is dead and he has to go to

1217
01:08:02,880 --> 01:08:05,880
Speaker 3: his rest, and he eventually the ghost seems to give in.

1218
01:08:06,360 --> 01:08:09,280
Speaker 3: He turns about face and he walks back into the tunnel.

1219
01:08:09,800 --> 01:08:14,000
Speaker 3: But it's not over because then here comes everyone, the

1220
01:08:14,200 --> 01:08:18,639
Speaker 3: entire company who served under this commander, and they come

1221
01:08:18,840 --> 01:08:21,840
Speaker 3: marching out of the tunnel. Information they're you know, they're

1222
01:08:22,000 --> 01:08:25,760
Speaker 3: like calling out drill instructions. They call him marching and

1223
01:08:25,800 --> 01:08:30,120
Speaker 3: they stand in order in front of him. And here

1224
01:08:30,200 --> 01:08:33,639
Speaker 3: there's a confrontation where ultimately the commander has to accept

1225
01:08:33,640 --> 01:08:38,320
Speaker 3: his responsibility for their death in battle, where he says

1226
01:08:38,360 --> 01:08:41,800
Speaker 3: he would like to blame the stupidity of war for

1227
01:08:41,920 --> 01:08:44,519
Speaker 3: the deaths of his men, but he knows in his

1228
01:08:44,600 --> 01:08:47,840
Speaker 3: heart that he bears personal responsibility for sending them into

1229
01:08:47,880 --> 01:08:50,679
Speaker 3: certain doom because it was it was a feudal attempt,

1230
01:08:50,760 --> 01:08:54,120
Speaker 3: but he sent them into battle anyway. And I feel

1231
01:08:54,160 --> 01:08:57,559
Speaker 3: like this moment highlights a theme that I think appears

1232
01:08:57,600 --> 01:09:02,200
Speaker 3: in multiple segments of this movie, which is the theme

1233
01:09:02,280 --> 01:09:08,240
Speaker 3: of individual responsibility versus a kind of collective blame or stupidity. Specifically,

1234
01:09:08,320 --> 01:09:12,080
Speaker 3: like there's a theme of the inadequacy of placing blame

1235
01:09:12,160 --> 01:09:18,160
Speaker 3: for tragedies on abstract, impersonal forces or diffuse collectives. So

1236
01:09:18,200 --> 01:09:20,599
Speaker 3: there's the case here, But then the same thing happens

1237
01:09:20,640 --> 01:09:23,800
Speaker 3: in the next segment in Mount Fujian Red where or

1238
01:09:23,800 --> 01:09:27,960
Speaker 3: actually two segments later, where there's like a bureaucratic man

1239
01:09:28,040 --> 01:09:31,960
Speaker 3: in a suit and glasses who kind of contrasts a

1240
01:09:32,120 --> 01:09:36,080
Speaker 3: force of impersonal stupidity and arrogance that allowed the nuclear

1241
01:09:36,120 --> 01:09:39,400
Speaker 3: meltdown in that segment to occur. But then he acknowledges

1242
01:09:39,520 --> 01:09:42,320
Speaker 3: that he is personally to blame somehow, though he doesn't

1243
01:09:42,360 --> 01:09:44,920
Speaker 3: explain how. And this seems to be something that's on

1244
01:09:45,040 --> 01:09:47,519
Speaker 3: the dreamer's mind. It's one of these themes that comes

1245
01:09:47,640 --> 01:09:49,040
Speaker 3: up in multiple cases.

1246
01:09:49,960 --> 01:09:54,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I want to also flag he hear that

1247
01:09:54,800 --> 01:09:59,840
Speaker 2: the makeup for the soldiers the ghosts here is really

1248
01:10:00,040 --> 01:10:02,200
Speaker 2: really well done. It is it is again you get

1249
01:10:02,240 --> 01:10:06,520
Speaker 2: a sense of Corosawa pulling back from anything too monstrous,

1250
01:10:07,040 --> 01:10:09,799
Speaker 2: like these are not like, this is not zombie makeup

1251
01:10:11,120 --> 01:10:13,240
Speaker 2: or what you might think of a zombie makeup. It

1252
01:10:13,280 --> 01:10:16,360
Speaker 2: really but it's also not like straight up kobuki makeup either.

1253
01:10:16,400 --> 01:10:20,000
Speaker 2: It's kind of like somewhere in this perfect place between

1254
01:10:20,080 --> 01:10:22,800
Speaker 2: kabuki makeup and like just a corpse like.

1255
01:10:22,800 --> 01:10:26,599
Speaker 3: Pallor Yeah, the blueness of their makeup is so interesting.

1256
01:10:26,720 --> 01:10:29,800
Speaker 3: Is a color choice. It doesn't exactly suggest rot. It

1257
01:10:30,040 --> 01:10:34,120
Speaker 3: suggests a kind of changedness and like become a different

1258
01:10:34,240 --> 01:10:38,280
Speaker 3: kind of being. Yeah, but anyway, so the commander accepts

1259
01:10:38,280 --> 01:10:42,800
Speaker 3: his responsibility and he orders his men to turn about

1260
01:10:42,880 --> 01:10:45,400
Speaker 3: face and to march back into the tunnel, to essentially

1261
01:10:45,479 --> 01:10:49,679
Speaker 3: accept their destruction and go into death, go into their rest.

1262
01:10:50,160 --> 01:10:52,840
Speaker 3: And then you might think the encounter is over, but

1263
01:10:53,439 --> 01:10:56,080
Speaker 3: there is another escalation because we get the return of

1264
01:10:56,120 --> 01:10:58,840
Speaker 3: the dog. So the anti tank dog runs back out

1265
01:10:58,880 --> 01:11:02,879
Speaker 3: again and begins it starts snarling and menacing the officer,

1266
01:11:03,360 --> 01:11:05,800
Speaker 3: and once again it just ends at this moment of

1267
01:11:05,840 --> 01:11:08,520
Speaker 3: heightened menace where we don't know how it resolves.

1268
01:11:09,360 --> 01:11:13,320
Speaker 2: Great segment though, really everyone in it is stellar, just

1269
01:11:13,360 --> 01:11:15,879
Speaker 2: the I mean everything about it, the way it's framed,

1270
01:11:15,960 --> 01:11:19,519
Speaker 2: the costuming, the location they use, just everything lines up

1271
01:11:19,520 --> 01:11:20,400
Speaker 2: on this one for sure.

1272
01:11:21,160 --> 01:11:24,439
Speaker 3: The next segment is Crows. This is the one that

1273
01:11:24,680 --> 01:11:27,080
Speaker 3: has the paintings of Vincent veng Go. So it begins

1274
01:11:27,120 --> 01:11:31,000
Speaker 3: with the Khorsaur protagonist in a museum looking at Vengo's paintings.

1275
01:11:31,000 --> 01:11:34,400
Speaker 3: He's looking at starry Night and one of his self portraits.

1276
01:11:35,080 --> 01:11:37,719
Speaker 2: Then he experiences a little Stendel syndrome and just walks

1277
01:11:37,800 --> 01:11:38,559
Speaker 2: right into that thing.

1278
01:11:38,920 --> 01:11:41,479
Speaker 3: He goes into the paintings. I think the first one

1279
01:11:41,520 --> 01:11:45,759
Speaker 3: he enters is so Vengo did a number of paintings

1280
01:11:45,800 --> 01:11:49,960
Speaker 3: of the bridge at Arla ar l e s if

1281
01:11:50,000 --> 01:11:54,439
Speaker 3: I'm saying that right, Arla's or Arla, And I think

1282
01:11:54,439 --> 01:11:57,880
Speaker 3: the specific one that he appears in is the Langlowy

1283
01:11:58,000 --> 01:12:01,559
Speaker 3: Bridge at Arla with women washing. So that's a painting

1284
01:12:01,560 --> 01:12:03,160
Speaker 3: you can look up if you want. It shows like

1285
01:12:03,200 --> 01:12:06,760
Speaker 3: a bridge with a sort of you know, drawbridge characteristic

1286
01:12:06,880 --> 01:12:09,439
Speaker 3: that can be raised so boats can pass underneath. But

1287
01:12:09,520 --> 01:12:13,000
Speaker 3: there's a carriage, a horse drawn carriage on the wooden

1288
01:12:13,000 --> 01:12:15,640
Speaker 3: part of the bridge, and then down in the foreground

1289
01:12:15,720 --> 01:12:19,200
Speaker 3: there are women washing clothes in the river. And our

1290
01:12:19,240 --> 01:12:22,080
Speaker 3: protagonist just sort of wanders into this scene and it's

1291
01:12:22,160 --> 01:12:25,680
Speaker 3: reproduced in a spectacular way. I love the way that

1292
01:12:25,880 --> 01:12:29,360
Speaker 3: the color qualities of the van Go paintings are recreated

1293
01:12:29,360 --> 01:12:33,200
Speaker 3: in the sets and the lighting that Kusawa puts together here.

1294
01:12:33,680 --> 01:12:35,840
Speaker 2: Yes, agreed, And I also like this is a nice

1295
01:12:35,840 --> 01:12:40,240
Speaker 2: pivot from the more serious, or at least the more

1296
01:12:40,280 --> 01:12:43,559
Speaker 2: dramatic vibes of the last segment. Yeah.

1297
01:12:43,600 --> 01:12:46,120
Speaker 3: So the protagonist here wants to meet ven Go and

1298
01:12:46,200 --> 01:12:48,639
Speaker 3: he wanders around looking for him. He asks the locals

1299
01:12:48,640 --> 01:12:51,439
Speaker 3: where he is. They say he's a madman. But he

1300
01:12:51,560 --> 01:12:56,480
Speaker 3: finds van Go in a wheat field painting or observing

1301
01:12:56,479 --> 01:12:59,920
Speaker 3: the wheat field and talking about painting. This a major

1302
01:13:00,760 --> 01:13:04,040
Speaker 3: visual theme here is van Go's painting wheat field with crows,

1303
01:13:04,080 --> 01:13:07,000
Speaker 3: which shows like, you know, these the tall staves of

1304
01:13:07,000 --> 01:13:09,080
Speaker 3: wheed and then the crows flying up out of them

1305
01:13:09,080 --> 01:13:13,559
Speaker 3: into a blue sky. The version we see a van

1306
01:13:13,600 --> 01:13:16,640
Speaker 3: Go portrayed by Martin Scorsese, and this vignette seems to

1307
01:13:16,680 --> 01:13:19,760
Speaker 3: resemble the figure, at least as I found in a

1308
01:13:19,840 --> 01:13:24,040
Speaker 3: Vango painting called Painter on the Road to Tarasan or Terrascon. Again,

1309
01:13:24,080 --> 01:13:26,000
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how to say that, but he's got

1310
01:13:26,000 --> 01:13:27,960
Speaker 3: a you know, a wide straw hat and just a

1311
01:13:27,960 --> 01:13:30,800
Speaker 3: lot of stuff with him. You know, he's got all

1312
01:13:30,840 --> 01:13:33,559
Speaker 3: his gear and his painting and a satchel and all that.

1313
01:13:34,560 --> 01:13:38,400
Speaker 3: The VANGOI meet is very distracted, you know, he's never

1314
01:13:38,439 --> 01:13:41,439
Speaker 3: really giving the protagonist his full attention. His attention is

1315
01:13:41,479 --> 01:13:44,439
Speaker 3: on the scene and the landscape. And there's a lot

1316
01:13:44,479 --> 01:13:47,320
Speaker 3: of idea of like, you know, what's really valuable here

1317
01:13:47,479 --> 01:13:50,400
Speaker 3: is this scene and its beauty, and I must consume

1318
01:13:50,439 --> 01:13:54,240
Speaker 3: it and process it and turn it into something and

1319
01:13:54,320 --> 01:13:57,280
Speaker 3: that's what that's what matters. And I'm sort of halfway

1320
01:13:57,360 --> 01:13:59,439
Speaker 3: giving you enough attention to talk to you, but only

1321
01:13:59,479 --> 01:14:00,360
Speaker 3: about what I I'm.

1322
01:14:00,240 --> 01:14:02,880
Speaker 2: Doing, doesn't he This is the part we have a

1323
01:14:02,920 --> 01:14:06,439
Speaker 2: line where old Marty van Go says, well, why aren't

1324
01:14:06,439 --> 01:14:08,680
Speaker 2: you painting? Like you got your stuff? Like what are

1325
01:14:08,720 --> 01:14:11,519
Speaker 2: you doing out here? Like this is this is why

1326
01:14:11,560 --> 01:14:15,040
Speaker 2: we're here, This is the reason we exist. Get to paint?

1327
01:14:15,320 --> 01:14:19,080
Speaker 3: Why are you talking to me? Why aren't you painting? Yeah?

1328
01:14:19,120 --> 01:14:22,400
Speaker 3: I think that's a nice little, uh, gentle self criticism

1329
01:14:22,439 --> 01:14:26,240
Speaker 3: here from Corsawa. You know that apparently Corsawa was personally

1330
01:14:26,320 --> 01:14:28,519
Speaker 3: very interested in Vango, like he had read a lot

1331
01:14:28,520 --> 01:14:31,880
Speaker 3: of his letters and stuff and was interested in the

1332
01:14:31,880 --> 01:14:33,639
Speaker 3: man's life as well as to his work.

1333
01:14:34,040 --> 01:14:38,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again makes sense given Chrisau was an early

1334
01:14:38,120 --> 01:14:42,080
Speaker 2: interest and in a career as a painter before pivoting

1335
01:14:42,080 --> 01:14:51,439
Speaker 2: to a film.

1336
01:14:51,880 --> 01:14:55,160
Speaker 3: Next couple of segments, Mount Fujian Read and The Weeping Demon,

1337
01:14:55,280 --> 01:14:59,680
Speaker 3: or sort of the nuclear horror segments. So Mount Fujian Read.

1338
01:14:59,720 --> 01:15:02,080
Speaker 3: As I said, the protagonist just finds himself in the

1339
01:15:02,080 --> 01:15:04,360
Speaker 3: middle of a disaster scene. I think when we first

1340
01:15:04,400 --> 01:15:07,320
Speaker 3: see him, everybody else is running in one direction and

1341
01:15:07,360 --> 01:15:10,280
Speaker 3: he's walking in the opposite direction. He's like the only one.

1342
01:15:10,400 --> 01:15:13,760
Speaker 3: He's going against the flow of the crowd, and he

1343
01:15:13,840 --> 01:15:17,519
Speaker 3: sees Mount Fuji just it looks like hot lava. It's

1344
01:15:17,600 --> 01:15:20,880
Speaker 3: just you know, glowing hot, and there are these explosions,

1345
01:15:20,920 --> 01:15:24,120
Speaker 3: and he learns that it's due to a nuclear meltdown.

1346
01:15:24,640 --> 01:15:27,080
Speaker 3: And as we talked about, they have these discussions. A

1347
01:15:27,080 --> 01:15:29,639
Speaker 3: man in a suit appears and he kind of explains things.

1348
01:15:29,640 --> 01:15:34,200
Speaker 3: There's this long digression about the different colored like the

1349
01:15:34,240 --> 01:15:38,400
Speaker 3: different colors of fog and what radioactive isotopes they represent,

1350
01:15:38,920 --> 01:15:41,280
Speaker 3: and how each one kills you in different ways, and

1351
01:15:41,320 --> 01:15:43,519
Speaker 3: they're like, well, we color coded them so you can

1352
01:15:43,640 --> 01:15:46,080
Speaker 3: know which type of fog is killing you, but it

1353
01:15:46,120 --> 01:15:49,559
Speaker 3: doesn't help you survive. It seems to be some kind

1354
01:15:49,600 --> 01:15:53,879
Speaker 3: of commentary on like the absurdity of like false senses

1355
01:15:53,880 --> 01:15:59,080
Speaker 3: of security provided by technology and that there are these,

1356
01:15:59,240 --> 01:16:02,040
Speaker 3: you know, threats that people just kind of rush into

1357
01:16:02,280 --> 01:16:05,040
Speaker 3: and we're given false assurance that it's going to be okay,

1358
01:16:05,479 --> 01:16:08,120
Speaker 3: but in fact that that was all you know, that

1359
01:16:08,200 --> 01:16:10,720
Speaker 3: was all just rosy talk, and in fact this is

1360
01:16:10,840 --> 01:16:14,280
Speaker 3: real stupidity and people are really to blame for this disaster.

1361
01:16:14,760 --> 01:16:16,680
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot to unpack here with just

1362
01:16:16,760 --> 01:16:19,160
Speaker 2: the symbolism of all of this. Because Mount Fuji, of

1363
01:16:19,160 --> 01:16:23,719
Speaker 2: course is a dormant volcano. It's the tallest peak in Japan.

1364
01:16:23,720 --> 01:16:28,160
Speaker 2: I believes the last eruption was seventeen oh seven, But

1365
01:16:28,240 --> 01:16:30,200
Speaker 2: at the same time it is very much a symbol

1366
01:16:30,280 --> 01:16:33,640
Speaker 2: of Japan. And then on top of that we have

1367
01:16:33,760 --> 01:16:37,519
Speaker 2: the like the dream logic here as well of the

1368
01:16:37,920 --> 01:16:42,080
Speaker 2: mountain we learn is not actually erupting. It is nuclear

1369
01:16:42,840 --> 01:16:47,120
Speaker 2: meltdowns happening like behind the mountain. But at the same

1370
01:16:47,160 --> 01:16:50,479
Speaker 2: time everything has like the flavor of volcanic eruptions, so

1371
01:16:50,560 --> 01:16:52,880
Speaker 2: it's like both things at once without being either.

1372
01:16:53,280 --> 01:16:56,400
Speaker 3: This one also has that horrifying sense of futility because

1373
01:16:56,400 --> 01:16:59,960
Speaker 3: it ends with a really just gut wrenching scene with

1374
01:17:00,000 --> 01:17:03,519
Speaker 3: there's like a woman with two children who have joined him,

1375
01:17:03,560 --> 01:17:06,840
Speaker 3: and the protagonist is trying to protect them as like

1376
01:17:06,880 --> 01:17:10,320
Speaker 3: the fog clouds billow toward them, and he's in this

1377
01:17:10,479 --> 01:17:13,599
Speaker 3: utterly feudal gesture. He's like waving at the fog clouds

1378
01:17:13,600 --> 01:17:16,719
Speaker 3: with his jacket, trying to fan them away. But there's

1379
01:17:16,720 --> 01:17:19,519
Speaker 3: a sense that everyone is just doomed and there's nothing

1380
01:17:19,560 --> 01:17:22,840
Speaker 3: anyone can do. Again, ends right at the height of

1381
01:17:22,880 --> 01:17:26,360
Speaker 3: the action, and then goes on to the next segment,

1382
01:17:26,400 --> 01:17:29,479
Speaker 3: another nuclear horror segment called The Weeping Demon, where our

1383
01:17:29,520 --> 01:17:33,559
Speaker 3: protagonist is wandering in this volcanic landscape very much it's

1384
01:17:33,600 --> 01:17:36,320
Speaker 3: almost like the slopes of Mount Fuji maybe, where there's

1385
01:17:36,320 --> 01:17:39,320
Speaker 3: a kind of dark volcanic soil and all these rocks

1386
01:17:39,360 --> 01:17:43,280
Speaker 3: and mist and fog billowing everywhere, and he encounters this

1387
01:17:43,479 --> 01:17:46,320
Speaker 3: monstrous looking figure with a horn on his head, which

1388
01:17:46,320 --> 01:17:48,640
Speaker 3: I think is initially styled to be some sort of

1389
01:17:48,760 --> 01:17:49,599
Speaker 3: some kind of onny.

1390
01:17:50,320 --> 01:17:54,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely some onny vibes to this creature. I also

1391
01:17:54,479 --> 01:17:59,559
Speaker 2: have to flag that I again am sick and I

1392
01:17:59,600 --> 01:18:01,920
Speaker 2: had a few while watching this film. I think my

1393
01:18:02,000 --> 01:18:04,920
Speaker 2: eyes shut for a second at the very end of

1394
01:18:05,000 --> 01:18:08,479
Speaker 2: the Mount Fuji segment and then reopened during the Weeping Demon,

1395
01:18:08,760 --> 01:18:11,320
Speaker 2: and I thought it was one segment, but there is

1396
01:18:11,400 --> 01:18:13,559
Speaker 2: kind of like a similar vibe, like he's heading off

1397
01:18:13,720 --> 01:18:18,639
Speaker 2: into the nuclear waste at the end of Mount Fuji

1398
01:18:18,680 --> 01:18:22,240
Speaker 2: and now here we are in a different atomic wasteland.

1399
01:18:22,520 --> 01:18:25,360
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then after this we get a long discourse

1400
01:18:25,360 --> 01:18:28,800
Speaker 3: from the demon as he explains this hell they have created.

1401
01:18:29,680 --> 01:18:34,120
Speaker 3: He sort of explains himself as a mutated product of radiation.

1402
01:18:34,400 --> 01:18:38,080
Speaker 3: And then they sit under these tree sized dandelions that

1403
01:18:38,120 --> 01:18:41,880
Speaker 3: are twisted and mutated by the radioactive fallout. And then

1404
01:18:41,920 --> 01:18:44,640
Speaker 3: he talks about these different kinds of demons, these like

1405
01:18:44,800 --> 01:18:48,599
Speaker 3: grades of demons. The demon with one horn is scary,

1406
01:18:48,680 --> 01:18:50,880
Speaker 3: but the demons with one horn get eaten by the

1407
01:18:50,880 --> 01:18:54,519
Speaker 3: demons who have two or three horns. And they're also hungry,

1408
01:18:54,920 --> 01:18:57,640
Speaker 3: and then we see there's like a scene where the

1409
01:18:57,640 --> 01:18:59,759
Speaker 3: demon is like, come, I'll show you, and he leads

1410
01:18:59,800 --> 01:19:02,360
Speaker 3: the protagonists to this overlook where they look down at

1411
01:19:02,400 --> 01:19:06,439
Speaker 3: these gross like pools of pink and red water, where

1412
01:19:06,479 --> 01:19:08,800
Speaker 3: all of these demons are like running around them in

1413
01:19:08,840 --> 01:19:13,120
Speaker 3: circles in a way that suggests representations from Dante's Inferno,

1414
01:19:13,160 --> 01:19:15,439
Speaker 3: where you know, in hell you will have the damned

1415
01:19:15,439 --> 01:19:18,519
Speaker 3: sort of like running in pointless circles around something.

1416
01:19:19,560 --> 01:19:20,880
Speaker 2: Uh and it uh.

1417
01:19:21,080 --> 01:19:23,960
Speaker 3: And it's like they're they're calling out, they're you know,

1418
01:19:24,000 --> 01:19:27,519
Speaker 3: they're ready, they're gonna come eat them soon. But they're

1419
01:19:27,560 --> 01:19:31,240
Speaker 3: in pain themselves. They're suffering. Their their horns cause them pain.

1420
01:19:32,040 --> 01:19:35,920
Speaker 3: And we learned so many things. The demon explains he

1421
01:19:36,120 --> 01:19:39,840
Speaker 3: was again there's this thing of like eyebear individual responsibility.

1422
01:19:39,840 --> 01:19:43,400
Speaker 3: He explains, I was a farmer who destroyed my harvest

1423
01:19:43,439 --> 01:19:47,200
Speaker 3: as part of a scheme to keep prices high. And

1424
01:19:47,200 --> 01:19:50,400
Speaker 3: and but they talk about other people who did other

1425
01:19:50,479 --> 01:19:54,440
Speaker 3: things who may have become even worse kinds of demons themselves.

1426
01:19:55,200 --> 01:19:58,519
Speaker 3: And so another just bleak, horrifying segment that also ends

1427
01:19:58,840 --> 01:20:02,240
Speaker 3: with the demon just menacing the Krusauur protagonist and the

1428
01:20:02,240 --> 01:20:04,519
Speaker 3: protagonist is running away down the side of the mountain,

1429
01:20:04,600 --> 01:20:07,920
Speaker 3: looking constantly like he's about to go headlong and tumble away.

1430
01:20:08,320 --> 01:20:10,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like he's berating him right, like, get out

1431
01:20:10,680 --> 01:20:12,120
Speaker 2: of here. Do you want to become a demon too?

1432
01:20:12,439 --> 01:20:13,040
Speaker 3: Yeah?

1433
01:20:13,360 --> 01:20:17,760
Speaker 2: So this one was at once like as bleak as

1434
01:20:17,880 --> 01:20:21,799
Speaker 2: the previous segment, but also since we had these monster

1435
01:20:22,120 --> 01:20:25,480
Speaker 2: like beings, it also felt like a little more escapist.

1436
01:20:26,280 --> 01:20:31,080
Speaker 2: So I was again, all of these segments are excellently

1437
01:20:31,320 --> 01:20:35,000
Speaker 2: put together, but in a way, this one felt like

1438
01:20:35,040 --> 01:20:39,040
Speaker 2: a nice turn away from the seriousness of the previous

1439
01:20:39,080 --> 01:20:40,120
Speaker 2: Mount Fuji sequence.

1440
01:20:40,760 --> 01:20:44,479
Speaker 3: And then we get a very sharp turn into different

1441
01:20:44,600 --> 01:20:48,439
Speaker 3: territory for the last sequence, which is the Village of

1442
01:20:48,479 --> 01:20:52,639
Speaker 3: the Watermills. So our protagonist here the Dreamer, arrives by

1443
01:20:52,680 --> 01:20:57,280
Speaker 3: foot in a small rural village beside a river. There

1444
01:20:57,280 --> 01:20:59,960
Speaker 3: are these old wooden water wheels turning in the current,

1445
01:21:00,000 --> 01:21:03,280
Speaker 3: and I guess they're running mills, and they're flowers blooming everywhere,

1446
01:21:03,840 --> 01:21:07,120
Speaker 3: and kursaw, what really takes time to show us the

1447
01:21:07,640 --> 01:21:10,160
Speaker 3: nature around there, to show us like green water plants

1448
01:21:10,200 --> 01:21:12,600
Speaker 3: waving in the stream, kind of like hair blowing in

1449
01:21:12,640 --> 01:21:16,919
Speaker 3: the wind. And the dreamer comes in and he watches

1450
01:21:17,280 --> 01:21:19,479
Speaker 3: the children as they sort of gather on a little

1451
01:21:19,479 --> 01:21:22,240
Speaker 3: island in the stream that's bridged, you know that they

1452
01:21:22,320 --> 01:21:25,120
Speaker 3: reach by bridge and they pick flowers there, and they

1453
01:21:25,160 --> 01:21:28,120
Speaker 3: take the flowers and they lay them all on a stone.

1454
01:21:28,200 --> 01:21:32,120
Speaker 3: It's a very just beautiful, kind of gentle scene. And

1455
01:21:32,240 --> 01:21:34,720
Speaker 3: the dreamer meets an old man who's working on a

1456
01:21:34,760 --> 01:21:38,160
Speaker 3: water wheel mechanism of some kind, and they have a

1457
01:21:38,160 --> 01:21:40,639
Speaker 3: long conversation where the old man just kind of explains

1458
01:21:40,640 --> 01:21:42,840
Speaker 3: his philosophy. They talk about all kinds of things. He

1459
01:21:43,240 --> 01:21:45,160
Speaker 3: A big part of it is him talking about how

1460
01:21:45,160 --> 01:21:48,400
Speaker 3: they don't need technology in this village. The man's like,

1461
01:21:48,439 --> 01:21:50,519
Speaker 3: don't you have electricity here? And the man's like, we

1462
01:21:50,560 --> 01:21:53,320
Speaker 3: don't need it and he's like, yeah, but what about

1463
01:21:53,320 --> 01:21:55,439
Speaker 3: at night when it gets dark? And the guy's like,

1464
01:21:55,600 --> 01:22:00,720
Speaker 3: night is supposed to be dark. And so the main

1465
01:22:00,800 --> 01:22:05,920
Speaker 3: thrust of the old Man's philosophy is that people and

1466
01:22:06,360 --> 01:22:09,559
Speaker 3: people in the cities think that labor saving technology will

1467
01:22:09,560 --> 01:22:13,160
Speaker 3: make them happy, but secretly it just makes them more miserable,

1468
01:22:13,560 --> 01:22:16,560
Speaker 3: and they don't realize it until they have already destroyed

1469
01:22:16,560 --> 01:22:18,679
Speaker 3: the natural world and they can't get it back.

1470
01:22:19,640 --> 01:22:23,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, this segment is great in so many ways, like

1471
01:22:23,240 --> 01:22:29,160
Speaker 2: it's it's definitely another rumination on this idea of the

1472
01:22:29,200 --> 01:22:35,400
Speaker 2: idyllic rural Japan versus modern urban Japan, something that you

1473
01:22:35,479 --> 01:22:38,680
Speaker 2: see in multiple studio ghibli pictures. So if any of

1474
01:22:38,760 --> 01:22:42,160
Speaker 2: you are certainly more familiar with the works of Miyazaki,

1475
01:22:42,600 --> 01:22:44,760
Speaker 2: you've seen this kind of vibe. And I believe and

1476
01:22:44,960 --> 01:22:46,360
Speaker 2: I would go as far as to say, like this

1477
01:22:47,479 --> 01:22:50,479
Speaker 2: the sequence too, like it feels very much in line

1478
01:22:50,600 --> 01:22:52,760
Speaker 2: with like a Miyazaki film too, and that we have

1479
01:22:52,880 --> 01:22:56,559
Speaker 2: just such vibrant colors, like this is the world in

1480
01:22:56,640 --> 01:22:59,160
Speaker 2: full bloom. This is like it is almost like an

1481
01:22:59,360 --> 01:23:02,920
Speaker 2: Eden to some extent. And oh and by the way,

1482
01:23:02,920 --> 01:23:06,120
Speaker 2: I should mention that that documentary Cursaw Was Way also

1483
01:23:06,200 --> 01:23:09,519
Speaker 2: features interview segments with me asz Aki. He's one of

1484
01:23:09,520 --> 01:23:13,360
Speaker 2: the many directors who talks about his admiration for Cursawa's work.

1485
01:23:14,200 --> 01:23:17,519
Speaker 3: This segment absolutely has strong me az Aki vibes, yeah,

1486
01:23:17,760 --> 01:23:22,479
Speaker 3: in that love for verdant nature and the environmentalist outlook

1487
01:23:22,560 --> 01:23:25,200
Speaker 3: and all that sort of thing. And then also I

1488
01:23:25,240 --> 01:23:28,440
Speaker 3: think in this next moment, because after this, the protagonist

1489
01:23:28,479 --> 01:23:31,880
Speaker 3: hears what sounds like a celebration, He hears laughter and

1490
01:23:31,920 --> 01:23:36,880
Speaker 3: shouting and happy music, and the old man explains to him, actually,

1491
01:23:36,920 --> 01:23:40,040
Speaker 3: what he's hearing is a funeral. It's a good, happy funeral,

1492
01:23:40,880 --> 01:23:43,679
Speaker 3: and this is another part of his philosophy. He says, well,

1493
01:23:43,680 --> 01:23:46,400
Speaker 3: when someone dies young, it's sad, but when someone dies

1494
01:23:46,439 --> 01:23:49,240
Speaker 3: in old age, it's a joyous occasion because they lived

1495
01:23:49,240 --> 01:23:52,280
Speaker 3: a full life. So the people march and they sing

1496
01:23:52,320 --> 01:23:55,400
Speaker 3: happy songs. And the woman who died in the funeral

1497
01:23:55,439 --> 01:23:58,200
Speaker 3: that's being celebrated today was almost one hundred years old.

1498
01:23:58,280 --> 01:24:01,320
Speaker 3: In fact, she was this old man's first love when

1499
01:24:01,320 --> 01:24:03,800
Speaker 3: they were both very young. She broke his heart she

1500
01:24:03,920 --> 01:24:06,120
Speaker 3: married another, and then he just laughs about it.

1501
01:24:06,720 --> 01:24:07,800
Speaker 2: I love his laugh here.

1502
01:24:08,439 --> 01:24:12,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's also The protagonist asks the old man about

1503
01:24:12,920 --> 01:24:15,200
Speaker 3: the stone where the children laid the flowers, and the

1504
01:24:15,200 --> 01:24:17,920
Speaker 3: man tells the story. He says that long ago a

1505
01:24:18,000 --> 01:24:20,920
Speaker 3: traveler came to the village, much like our dreamer here,

1506
01:24:21,400 --> 01:24:24,559
Speaker 3: but he arrived sick like he brought the sickness of

1507
01:24:24,600 --> 01:24:27,840
Speaker 3: the modern world with him, and he collapsed and died

1508
01:24:27,920 --> 01:24:30,679
Speaker 3: beside the river, and the people took pity on him

1509
01:24:31,040 --> 01:24:33,160
Speaker 3: and they buried him right where he fell, and the

1510
01:24:33,200 --> 01:24:36,360
Speaker 3: stone is his grave marker, and the children place flowers

1511
01:24:36,400 --> 01:24:38,720
Speaker 3: on it. It's hard not to think about the man

1512
01:24:38,720 --> 01:24:41,880
Speaker 3: who died as being kind of suggested as another version

1513
01:24:41,960 --> 01:24:45,680
Speaker 3: of the visitor of the dreamer here and then from here,

1514
01:24:45,720 --> 01:24:47,960
Speaker 3: the old man goes off to celebrate the death of

1515
01:24:48,000 --> 01:24:51,000
Speaker 3: his first love, and the traveler watches the funeral march

1516
01:24:51,040 --> 01:24:53,880
Speaker 3: and listens to the happy music, and he feels kind

1517
01:24:53,880 --> 01:24:57,479
Speaker 3: of infused with the goodness and the happiness of this place,

1518
01:24:57,600 --> 01:25:00,639
Speaker 3: and we hear the music as well. That's the end.

1519
01:25:01,120 --> 01:25:04,160
Speaker 2: The music is so terrific here, as I mentioned earlier,

1520
01:25:04,240 --> 01:25:07,320
Speaker 2: like I don't know exactly what you call this type

1521
01:25:07,320 --> 01:25:11,080
Speaker 2: of song, like how this factors into traditional Japanese music,

1522
01:25:11,120 --> 01:25:13,800
Speaker 2: But it's very joyous, like the old man explains it,

1523
01:25:13,840 --> 01:25:17,080
Speaker 2: like this is a celebration of life, and you totally

1524
01:25:17,120 --> 01:25:19,479
Speaker 2: feel it. You see it on the faces of all

1525
01:25:19,479 --> 01:25:23,559
Speaker 2: of the villagers in this procession. It's just such a

1526
01:25:23,560 --> 01:25:24,320
Speaker 2: great vibe.

1527
01:25:24,520 --> 01:25:26,080
Speaker 3: I want to come back to that joy in just

1528
01:25:26,120 --> 01:25:28,240
Speaker 3: a minute, but I guess before we wrap up, I

1529
01:25:28,280 --> 01:25:30,360
Speaker 3: just wanted to mention a couple of the other interesting

1530
01:25:30,600 --> 01:25:34,040
Speaker 3: themes and threads I saw tying together these very different narratives.

1531
01:25:35,400 --> 01:25:38,160
Speaker 3: One thing that I noticed, Rob, did you notice this

1532
01:25:38,240 --> 01:25:43,400
Speaker 3: theme of the dilemma of being destroyed versus being transformed.

1533
01:25:44,560 --> 01:25:47,920
Speaker 3: That like, in several of the more nightmarish scenes, especially,

1534
01:25:48,400 --> 01:25:50,439
Speaker 3: there is a dilemma faced by the characters in which

1535
01:25:50,479 --> 01:25:53,479
Speaker 3: they can either be annihilated, they can cease to exist

1536
01:25:54,080 --> 01:25:58,400
Speaker 3: or live on transformed into something tortured and unnatural. This

1537
01:25:58,479 --> 01:26:01,479
Speaker 3: is a major theme of the Weeping Demon. It comes

1538
01:26:01,600 --> 01:26:03,679
Speaker 3: up in Mount Fuji and Red, where they talk about

1539
01:26:03,680 --> 01:26:06,599
Speaker 3: the idea of immediate death versus a slow death from

1540
01:26:06,680 --> 01:26:10,000
Speaker 3: the effects of radiation. It comes up in the Tunnel

1541
01:26:10,080 --> 01:26:12,920
Speaker 3: because the dead soldiers can't acknowledge that they are dead

1542
01:26:12,960 --> 01:26:15,640
Speaker 3: and they must cease to exist. Thus they go on

1543
01:26:15,800 --> 01:26:20,439
Speaker 3: in this baffled, twisted state of blue undeath. This clearly

1544
01:26:20,479 --> 01:26:24,439
Speaker 3: seems to be something that is on Krosova's mind. Another

1545
01:26:24,520 --> 01:26:29,880
Speaker 3: thing is across multiple scenes, I noticed a repeated theme

1546
01:26:29,960 --> 01:26:33,599
Speaker 3: of people getting no help from authorities and in fact

1547
01:26:33,760 --> 01:26:39,120
Speaker 3: authority figures suggesting that you must die like. There are

1548
01:26:39,160 --> 01:26:42,840
Speaker 3: multiple scenes where someone is denied aid by someone who

1549
01:26:42,880 --> 01:26:45,439
Speaker 3: should help them, or by an authority figure like a

1550
01:26:45,560 --> 01:26:48,719
Speaker 3: parent the mother in the first sequence, or a government

1551
01:26:48,760 --> 01:26:51,280
Speaker 3: official or a military commander.

1552
01:26:51,120 --> 01:26:52,400
Speaker 2: And a corporate world.

1553
01:26:52,800 --> 01:26:56,519
Speaker 3: Yes. In all these cases, the authority figure suggests there

1554
01:26:56,640 --> 01:26:58,400
Speaker 3: is nothing I can do to help you, and you

1555
01:26:58,479 --> 01:27:02,120
Speaker 3: must die. But then finally, and I think this brings

1556
01:27:02,160 --> 01:27:05,479
Speaker 3: us back to the last segment. There is a more

1557
01:27:06,240 --> 01:27:09,240
Speaker 3: theme that you get in both negative and positive visions,

1558
01:27:09,800 --> 01:27:13,360
Speaker 3: and it's something about the holiness of nature, something about

1559
01:27:13,360 --> 01:27:16,160
Speaker 3: how the holiness of nature is not appreciated, but that

1560
01:27:16,200 --> 01:27:20,400
Speaker 3: there is promise in coming to see it. And so

1561
01:27:21,080 --> 01:27:23,519
Speaker 3: I think the clear statement of the idea is that

1562
01:27:23,560 --> 01:27:27,360
Speaker 3: the natural world is absolutely vital to us, but that

1563
01:27:27,400 --> 01:27:31,439
Speaker 3: we remain blind to how important it is until we

1564
01:27:31,520 --> 01:27:35,040
Speaker 3: have already destroyed it. This theme is made very plain

1565
01:27:35,080 --> 01:27:36,800
Speaker 3: in the speech given by the old Man and the

1566
01:27:36,840 --> 01:27:39,599
Speaker 3: final Dream, where he's talking about the virtues of living

1567
01:27:39,640 --> 01:27:43,559
Speaker 3: simply and being in harmony with nature. He talks about

1568
01:27:43,600 --> 01:27:48,440
Speaker 3: the false promise of happiness through technology and convenience and materialism.

1569
01:27:49,160 --> 01:27:51,519
Speaker 3: But you see this theme occur at different levels through

1570
01:27:51,800 --> 01:27:54,120
Speaker 3: I think most of the segments, like the boy in

1571
01:27:54,160 --> 01:27:58,320
Speaker 3: the peach orchard is redeemed by proving that he hated

1572
01:27:58,360 --> 01:28:01,040
Speaker 3: the idea of cutting down the peach trees, and that

1573
01:28:01,120 --> 01:28:04,320
Speaker 3: he loved the orchard for the living beauty of the plants,

1574
01:28:04,360 --> 01:28:07,000
Speaker 3: not just for the produce. Not just for the material,

1575
01:28:07,439 --> 01:28:08,960
Speaker 3: you know, the peaches they grew.

1576
01:28:09,080 --> 01:28:11,559
Speaker 2: And in that segment we see that some level of

1577
01:28:11,600 --> 01:28:15,559
Speaker 2: regeneration is possible, like the we see that one plant

1578
01:28:15,600 --> 01:28:18,360
Speaker 2: that is growing back the promise of the future. Yeah.

1579
01:28:18,400 --> 01:28:20,960
Speaker 3: And in the crows segment also this is part of

1580
01:28:21,000 --> 01:28:23,960
Speaker 3: what van Go like, he discusses this kind of almost

1581
01:28:24,120 --> 01:28:31,160
Speaker 3: life or death drive to find purpose and positive meaning

1582
01:28:31,200 --> 01:28:35,040
Speaker 3: in life by like seeking out what's beautiful and valuable

1583
01:28:35,080 --> 01:28:37,559
Speaker 3: in nature and kind of processing it through, you know,

1584
01:28:37,640 --> 01:28:40,200
Speaker 3: to take that scene of nature and to make it

1585
01:28:40,280 --> 01:28:42,639
Speaker 3: part of himself and to make himself part of it.

1586
01:28:43,560 --> 01:28:43,960
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1587
01:28:44,040 --> 01:28:45,519
Speaker 3: And then of course that brings us back to the

1588
01:28:45,560 --> 01:28:50,880
Speaker 3: funeral at the end. There's something relieving and gorgeous and

1589
01:28:50,920 --> 01:28:54,160
Speaker 3: cathartic about the funeral because it suggests a kind of

1590
01:28:55,160 --> 01:29:00,360
Speaker 3: a way of happiness, happiness and purpose and goodness even

1591
01:29:00,400 --> 01:29:03,479
Speaker 3: in death, by finding your life in the kind of

1592
01:29:03,479 --> 01:29:05,600
Speaker 3: state that these villagers find it that you know that

1593
01:29:05,680 --> 01:29:09,040
Speaker 3: they live in harmony with nature, and they realize they

1594
01:29:09,040 --> 01:29:11,320
Speaker 3: see beauty around them and they take part of it.

1595
01:29:11,360 --> 01:29:13,599
Speaker 3: They don't, you know, they don't remain blind to it.

1596
01:29:13,640 --> 01:29:16,040
Speaker 3: They become part of it and they work with it,

1597
01:29:16,120 --> 01:29:18,960
Speaker 3: and it makes even death a happy thing.

1598
01:29:19,920 --> 01:29:23,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, return to nature or return to traditional values.

1599
01:29:23,120 --> 01:29:26,599
Speaker 2: This is you see this as a recurring theme in

1600
01:29:26,800 --> 01:29:30,720
Speaker 2: Japanese media of this time period especially, but also I

1601
01:29:30,760 --> 01:29:34,080
Speaker 2: think globally as well. I mean, this idea of of

1602
01:29:34,080 --> 01:29:37,479
Speaker 2: returning to nature, returning to the garden, you know, you

1603
01:29:37,520 --> 01:29:43,080
Speaker 2: see that certainly throughout the later half of the twentieth

1604
01:29:43,080 --> 01:29:47,880
Speaker 2: century and on through storytelling today. I don't think it's

1605
01:29:47,880 --> 01:29:52,160
Speaker 2: a revelation that thankfully we've completely abandoned.

1606
01:29:52,800 --> 01:29:55,040
Speaker 3: Or could hope to put into a kind of happy synthesis,

1607
01:29:55,080 --> 01:29:57,960
Speaker 3: because I also don't think it's quite fair to fully embrace,

1608
01:29:58,080 --> 01:30:02,000
Speaker 3: like the the philosophy that all labor saving conveniences are

1609
01:30:02,040 --> 01:30:06,040
Speaker 3: bad or something, you know, that happiness is necessarily through

1610
01:30:06,160 --> 01:30:09,519
Speaker 3: like destroying all machines and not having electricity. I mean,

1611
01:30:09,560 --> 01:30:12,000
Speaker 3: maybe it is, but I'm not sure that's the case.

1612
01:30:12,160 --> 01:30:14,280
Speaker 3: But certainly there is a lot of wisdom in the

1613
01:30:14,320 --> 01:30:20,000
Speaker 3: movies plea to be more conscious and protective of nature

1614
01:30:20,160 --> 01:30:24,280
Speaker 3: and to see ourselves as being in an absolutely vital

1615
01:30:24,560 --> 01:30:27,880
Speaker 3: kind of personal relationship with it, each one of us,

1616
01:30:27,920 --> 01:30:29,720
Speaker 3: and also together as a community.

1617
01:30:30,240 --> 01:30:36,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, that's the dream. Anyway, in this case, Kurosawa's Dreams.

1618
01:30:37,600 --> 01:30:39,679
Speaker 3: All right, well, I guess that's what I've got on Dreams.

1619
01:30:40,560 --> 01:30:43,639
Speaker 3: Rob is the is the cold medicine flagging? Yeah?

1620
01:30:43,640 --> 01:30:45,720
Speaker 2: Probably so, I believe. I believe I'm running out of

1621
01:30:45,800 --> 01:30:48,320
Speaker 2: energy here, but this is a great one. I'm so

1622
01:30:48,400 --> 01:30:51,800
Speaker 2: glad you picked Dreams for us to watch here for

1623
01:30:51,880 --> 01:30:55,680
Speaker 2: this episode of Weird House Cinema. Again, it's widely available,

1624
01:30:55,960 --> 01:31:00,120
Speaker 2: It's well worth watching, and again it's really hard to

1625
01:31:00,120 --> 01:31:04,800
Speaker 2: think of. I love dream sequences in films and television,

1626
01:31:06,240 --> 01:31:10,600
Speaker 2: but I find it rare that a filmmaker actually captures

1627
01:31:10,600 --> 01:31:14,880
Speaker 2: some true essence of dream and a character of Saul

1628
01:31:14,960 --> 01:31:18,400
Speaker 2: absolutely nails it here. Yeah, yeah, all right, we're gonna

1629
01:31:18,400 --> 01:31:20,960
Speaker 2: gohe and close it up. But hey, we'll be back

1630
01:31:21,000 --> 01:31:25,519
Speaker 2: next week with another cinematic masterpiece. Stay tuned for that one.

1631
01:31:26,040 --> 01:31:28,680
Speaker 2: Just a reminder that Weird House Cinema this is the

1632
01:31:29,000 --> 01:31:32,200
Speaker 2: episode that publishes on Fridays and the Stuff to Blow

1633
01:31:32,240 --> 01:31:36,520
Speaker 2: your Mind podcast feed. We're also experimenting with a standalone

1634
01:31:36,560 --> 01:31:38,880
Speaker 2: playlist of Weird House Cinema, so you can find Weird

1635
01:31:38,880 --> 01:31:43,200
Speaker 2: House Cinema listed separately on whatever platform it is you

1636
01:31:43,280 --> 01:31:45,519
Speaker 2: having to get your podcasts at. So check that out

1637
01:31:45,800 --> 01:31:47,800
Speaker 2: and if you are on a letterbox dot com. You

1638
01:31:47,800 --> 01:31:50,879
Speaker 2: can find us there. We are Weird House. That's our username,

1639
01:31:50,920 --> 01:31:52,519
Speaker 2: and there's a list of all the films we've covered

1640
01:31:52,560 --> 01:31:54,720
Speaker 2: thus far, and sometimes a peek ahead at what's coming

1641
01:31:54,800 --> 01:31:55,240
Speaker 2: up next.

1642
01:31:55,800 --> 01:31:59,479
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1643
01:31:59,640 --> 01:32:01,080
Speaker 3: If you were like to get in touch with us

1644
01:32:01,080 --> 01:32:03,439
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1645
01:32:03,520 --> 01:32:05,439
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1646
01:32:05,880 --> 01:32:08,400
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1647
01:32:08,439 --> 01:32:16,120
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

1648
01:32:16,280 --> 01:32:19,200
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1649
01:32:19,320 --> 01:32:22,080
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1650
01:32:22,240 --> 01:32:25,200
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