Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.
Cinematography
Takao Saitō's colors — every frame could hang in a gallery.
Production
Van Gogh sequence: actual Arles locations painted to match the madness.
Direction
81-year-old Kurosawa directing his own subconscious. No notes.
Director
Akira Kurosawa
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Martin Scorsese appears as Van Gogh after Kurosawa called in every favor — he was the only director who answered.
The 'Sunshine Through the Rain' fox wedding draws from actual Japanese folklore — seeing one brings death or madness, explaining why the boy's mother demands he commit seppuku.
JP
