akiraletter

Feeling Old? I have the Antidote.

9

When Ingmar Bergman turned 70, legendary director Akira Kurosawa sent him this birthday greeting. In it, he assures the aging Swede that his artistic life was only beginning, a sort of “life start at 80” mantra.

 

This can seem like the wishful thinking of a frightened old man, but for Kurosawa, it was not. At that time he was working on his latest project: Dreams 

dreams (1)

Judging a film like this, released when the director turned 80, can be a challenge. It met with mixed reviews initially, some finding the work too preachy or the pacing too slow. But if you can judge a work of art (and you can you pretentious fucks) it is by what it tells you about your life.

 

That in itself, knowing what something or someone means to you, is difficult. Here is one way: how memorable was the experience? I remember every second of this film, even the boring snow sequence. We want to feel we are in good hands, we want to feel like we are in the presence of the genius. We get both with this film. Watch it when you feel old. Watch it when you feel.

 

Good Things

  • Lifechanging
  • Industrial Light and Magic put their efforts into something other than monsters and lasers
  • Unforgettable

Bad Things

  • Scorsese attempts to act (he plays Van Gogh)
  • Film is in Japanese. Why don't they speak English? What are they trying to prove?