Dreams (Yume/Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams). Akira Kurosawa, 1990.
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #842, released 2016. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 120 minutes..
Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Dreams includes eight short films that are unrelated in plot but unified by themes of happy and ethical living:
1) Sunshine Through the Rain
2) The Peach Orchard
3) The Blizzard
4) The Tunnel
5) Crows
6) Mount Fuji in Red
7) The Weeping Demon
8) Village of the Watermills
The Peach Orchard is one of the most visually beautiful sequences I’ve seen.
The Criterion release includes Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s documentary Making of Dreams, filmed during production of Dreams (1990, 150 minutes), and Catherine Cadou’s Kurosawa’s Way (2011, 50 minutes), assembled interviews with regarded directors who explain their indebtedness to Kurosawa. Both free of animal violence.