Yume (aka Dreams) (1990)

Eight "dreams" of the director Akira Kurosawa form the basis for this film anthology: 1. A child watches a fox wedding though he was warned against it 2. A boy weeps for the loss of a peach orchard. 3. A group of climbers lose their way during a snowstorm. 4. A returning soldier encounters the ghosts of the men under his command. 5. An art student enters the world of Vincent Van Gogh. 6. A nuclear power plant explodes near Mt. Fuji. 7. A traveler encounters a mutation, a man with horns. 8. A hiker engages a 103 year old man in conversation at a lovely village by a river. Visually, this is one of Kurosawa's most beautiful films especially the last "dream" which is so gorgeous you want to step into it yourself. The stories themselves are a mixed lot. Some don't work like the blizzard dream which goes on way too long and while the Van Gogh sequence is lovely, once Martin Scorsese (as Van Gogh) opens his mouth, the impact goes flat. There seems to be a unifying theme: environmentalism. Unfortunately, this gives the film a rather preachy feel to it as some of the characters lecture us on mankind's destructive behavior toward nature. But it's Kurosawa so it's easy to tune out the pontification and enjoy the stylized narrative.