Yume jû-ya (2006)
Ten Nights of Dream (2006)
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 16:9 | 01:51:51 | 6,04 Gb
Audio: Japanese AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: English
Genre: Fantasy
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 16:9 | 01:51:51 | 6,04 Gb
Audio: Japanese AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: English
Genre: Fantasy
Based on renowned Japanese writer Natsume Soseki's same-titled short story collection, Ten Nights Of Dreams brings ten fantastical dream sequences to film with great visual and psychological panache. Representing the combined efforts of ten directors, this outstanding anthology delves into the surreal subconscious with ten madly imaginative, reality-subverting visions that range from wonderfully wacky to nightmarishly unsettling.
IMDB
SCREENED AT THE 2007 FANTASIA FESTIVAL: The bit that opens this film has legendary Japanese novelist Soseki Natsume admitting that the book "Ten Nights of Dreams" is meant to be a mystery, one which might not be solved for a hundred years. He says this in 1906, and the maid he's addressing comments that she'd have to reincarnate to see that. A hundred years later, ten notable directors have each made a short film based on one of the book's surreal stories, and while the results must often be quite far from what a Meiji-era writer imagined, they are nearly all fascinating.
Yume jû-ya (2006)
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The first dream is realized by the late Akio Jissoji, and gets the anthology off to a suitably surreal start: It features Soseki himself, speaking to his wife (Kyoko Koizumi) and, in true dream-like manner, feeling unstuck in time. Jissoji frequently pulls the camera back to show that Soseki's home is nothing more than a pair of sets on a stage. It's a theme that other directors will come back to - that Soseki not only wrote about fantasies, but was himself somewhat disconnected from reality.
The second dream comes from Kon Ichikawa, in which a samurai (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) is briefly visited by a wise man who challenges him to find enlightenment on a deadline. Presented as a silent film pastiche, it playfully tweaks the idea of enlightenment and understanding as something that can be strived for.
Yume jû-ya (2006)
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Takashi Shimizu is up next, and as you might expect from the man behind the Grudge franchise, his third dream is a nightmare, as a grotesque child leads Soseki through his wife's dream about broken idols and miscarried children being reincarnated in her womb. Shimizu draws upon Soseki's life from after the publication of Ten Nights to add an extra level of eeriness, and also demonstrates that he's well able to create scares without relying on his usual standbys. He also has room for a little wit, as his Natsume ponders that he cannot remember his own childhood clearly, and his own children sometimes seem alien to him.
Yume jû-ya (2006)
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Atsushi Shimizu (no relation, I presume) follows similar themes in the fourth tale, which has Soseki Natsume returning to a place he vaguely remembers to give a lecture to have his curiosity piqued by by a strangely familiar report of missing children. There's a vibe of rational dreaming here, as Natsume remembers something in his dreams that he cannot in life. Shimizu is the first to not feel bound by the constraints of the author's lifetime (Natsume died in 1916); the setting is clearly post-WWII, yet the story still feels of a piece with those that came before.
Yume jû-ya (2006)
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The fifth tale initially seems to return to the Meiji era; Keisuke Toyoshima presents us with a woman (Mikako Ichikawa) running from a disaster in her home on horeseback, pursued by a mummy intent on catching her. The the mummy morphs from an ominous figure in the shadows to a bizarre CGI creation, and the end, which takes place in a more modern setting, is funny and sweet.
Suzuki Matsuo injects some twenty-first century elements into the sixth tale, as villagers go to watch a wooden guardian being carved - and are surprised as the audience to see this accomplished in one blow of the hammer after the sculptor spend gloriously insane minutes dancing to a pumping electronic beat. It's a great showpiece for dancer "Tozawa", as he and Matsuo create a great performance piece that could not possibly have been dreamed quite that way a hundred years ago, but is filled with delirious energy.
Yume jû-ya (2006)
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The seventh dream is animated, the work of Yoshitaka Amano and Masaaki Kawahara, and stunning in a completely different way. The story of a boy riding a gigantic boat on a seemingly infinite sea is gorgeous, looking less like traditional anime or CGI than a living painting. It keeps the audience staring wide-eyed even as it tells its story of two people sharing their loneliness in a strange world.
In contrast, the eighth dream has a somewhat more cynical bent, as Nobuhiro Yamashita presents us with a boy who wants to keep the giant tentacled beast he finds while he and his friends were fishing for crabs, then an old man climbing into a bunkbed, then Natsume himself, looking blocked and ready to write down just any old thing. It's a funny, odd little piece, and manages to come off as charmingly irreverent and self-deprecating rather than mocking of the whole enterprise.
Yume jû-ya (2006)
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The ninth dream in some ways resembles the fifth, in that Miwa Nishikawa alternates between Meiji and a later era. A young mother takes her son to a nearby shrine to pray for his father's safe return from war, while pondering that this is not why she married him. The differences between the time periods are subtle, underscoring the universality of the story.
Subtle is the last thing you'll get from the final film, as Yudai Yamaguchi unleashes his particular brand of double-barrelled crazy on the audience with his story of a handsome but lazy shopkeeper who goes off with a beautiful woman only to find himself punished for his crimes toward the less attractive. Features a rocket-propelled walking stick, trap doors, a midnight murder, and a wrestling match against a giant anthropomorphic pig. It's an absolute gas.
Yume jû-ya (2006)
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Naturally, as the film ends, we're nowhere close to solving a mystery. But Natsume and his later admirers have managed to laugh and think and gasp in delight at their sheer imagination. The second bookend suggests we may have to wait another hundred years for the "mystery" to be "solved", but if that means that people will continue to be inspired by Natsume's work in the meantime, that hardly seems like a horrible fate.
Yume jû-ya (2006)
Based on a series of short stories written by Japanese author Natsume Sōseki in 1908, this film doles out each story to a different director for a short 7 to 13 minute film.
The stories are very dream-like with a logic structure from dreams so it's hard to explain the "plot". In one a writer's wife announces she is leaving after living with him for a hundred years. Another has a samurai being taunted by a drunk monk. Another has a man carve a block of wood by dancing before a motley crew of weirdos. And it goes on.
Yume jû-ya (2006)
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Anthology films are by nature a mixed bag but this one is very even in term of quality. None of the segments are terrible or even just bad. Some are better but the worst is still very good. Each director brings their own style to their segment. Some are spooky, some are funny and some are just plain weird. Of particular note is the very strange first segment by director Akio Jissoji, one of his last directorial jobs. The beautiful animated seventh dream by Final Fantasy designer Yoshitaka Amano and the final darkly comic dream by cult director Yudai Yamaguchi are standouts as well although other segments are noteworthy in their own ways.
One of the best anthology films I've seen recently. If you are looking for a storyline go elsewhere but for a rewarding walk in dreamtime this is an excellent choice. Recommended.IMDB Reviewer
Yume jû-ya (2006)
1. Yoshitaka Amano,
2. Kon Ichikawa,
3. Akio Jissoji
4. Masaaki Kawahara
5. Suzuki Matsuo
6. Miwa Nishikawa
7. Atsushi Shimizu
8. Takashi Shimizu
10. Yûdai Yamaguchi
11. Nobuhiro Yamashita
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