Over the course of a very long career, Akira Kurosawa (“Ikiru”, “Seven Samurai”) won the respect of audiences across the world and inspired many other great filmmakers such as George Lucas (“Star Wars”) and Steven Spielberg (“Jaws”). “Dreams” is arguably Kurosawa’s most personal film as it gives us a greater insight into his mind by representing some of his dreams. It was initially met with mixed reviews and I can understand why.

“Dreams” provides us with a collection of eight tales based upon the dreams of Kurosawa. The stories deal with the themes of life, death, nature, science, war and art.

This is such an unusual film so the characters are quite unusual. Some of the stories are clearly meant to show Kurosawa himself. As the dreams are taken from different points in his life, some have him depicted as a child. It’s really interesting to see him at different points in his life. Some of the characters we are introduced to are quite imaginative as we see fox people and horned demons. Also, director Martin Scorsese (“Taxi Driver”, “Goodfellas”) has a small role as Vincent Van Gogh during the “Crows” segment. Although his appearance is incredibly brief, he does a really good job.

Parts of the film are very slow, some of the segments feel very abstract and the whole thing feels incredibly self-indulgent so I can totally understand why some people do not care for this film. However, I think it creates some very impressive imagery and has some interesting ideas. My favourite segments were “Sunshine Through The Rain” and “Village of the Watermills” with my least favourite one being “The Blizzard”. Interestingly, some of the segments were directed by an uncredited Ishirô Honda (“Godzilla”). “Dreams” is not as great as “Seven Samurai”, “Ikiru”, “Yojimbo”, “Sanjuro”, “Ran” or “Rashomon” but it’s still worth seeing. Just make sure you prepare yourself for a very unique type of film.