Akira Kurosawa's Dreams
(Konna Yume Wo Mita)

Filmed eight years before the death of Kurosawa, the breath blowing through Dreams is that of an assured self-evidence characteristic of films that emerge at the end of a journey. A secret geography of the human soul, here the dream is at the same time a place, form, matter and theme. The Japanese maestro intervenes in the first person in his film as the “dreamer” crossing though the film’s eight segments. In Dreams, it seems we only need take a single step to slip from the intimate into the universal: a child’s enchantment with the world or vice versa, first desires and the spirit of rebellion, but also worries about the major threats that weigh on our lives and the collective fate of humankind – wars, nuclear disasters, natural catastrophes. All impactful events that Kurosawa witnessed first-hand or which happened in his lifetime. Aisha Rahim