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Akira Kurosawa's Dreams

Critiquing a master like Kurosawa is difficult. Like Hitchcock, most find greater difficulty in voicing their displeasure than in actually experiencing it. Dreams is, for lack of better words, a pretentious bore. It feels like a neverending sermon, cleverly distracting us with bright colors and beautiful landscapes. Sadly, the keen eye sees through this.

Broken into eight vignettes, it has it's high points, such as The Blizzard and The Tunnel, but has it's very low points, like Mount Fuji in Red, which looks like a high school project on the dangers of nuclear power.  The Crow is a bold idea, but us tripped up by the casting of Martin Scorsese as Vincent Van Gogh, who comes of like a bad Mel Brooks impersonator.

The biggest problem with Dreams is not in the direction or cinematography, but in the fact that tge misleading title leads you to believe you're going to be welcomed into the colorful mind of one of the greatest directors in film history, but all you are given is a look into a pessimistic mind, filled with tails of regret and lost hope. What starts as a bright feast for the eyes, turns into a drab display of weak metaphors and apocalyptic anecdotes.

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