Akira Kurosawa

Date

1995

Description

Creator of the image: Akira Kurosawa (director)
Date of the image creation: 1995
Medium of the image: Film
Person depicted: Akira Kurosawa as a boy, as played by Mitsunori Isaki

This image comes from a film made when Kurosawa (1910–1988) was eighty-years-old. It features eight independent dream sequences. The second episode, called ‘The Peach Orchard’, depicts a 13-year-old Kurosawa who is ogling his family’s collection of ornamental dolls for Hinamatsuri (Dolls Day), which is celebrated each year on the 3rd of March. Dressed in the style of the Heian period (794–1185 CE), the dolls are placed on a multi-tiered platform represent the emperor, attendants and court musicians and dances.

The young Kurosawa sees a girl in the house, but is not see by his older sister and her friends. The boy is scolded for annoying them. After again seeing the girl, he follows her, bells jingling bells, through a forest. This mysterious girl may be a reference to Kurosawa’s older sister who died of an illness when he was in the fourth grade. She leads him to the base of a hill where he sees about sixty human-sized Hinamatsuri dolls on the multi-tiered slope. The dolls are an embodiment of the peach tree spirits, and they chastise and tease the boy because his family cut down the entire peach orchid and then had the nerve to celebrate Doll Day.

The boy, who tried to stop the destruction of the orchid, cuts through their mockery with a cry of ‘No!’ The still-image is taken from this moment. Immediately thereafter, the boy proclaims: ‘Peaches can be bought. But where can you buy a whole orchard in bloom? I love this orchard and the peach trees which bloomed here’. Taking pity on the boy, the Dolls decide to allow him to see the orchid in bloom once more. They proceed to perform an Etenraku for him, a traditional Japanese melody and dance. At the end, they transform into a lush orchid of blooming peaches, the pink blossoms blowing on the breeze. The illusion is broken when the boy tries to enter the field, with all the trees reverting into stumps. He sees the girl again, and tries to follow her through the barren orchid. A tiny peach tree has sprouted from where she was last standing.

Quotes

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