Yume miruyoni nemuritai (1986)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Kaizo Hayashi

Writer:

Kaizo Hayashi (writer)

Release Date:

28 September 1986 (USA)

Genre:

Fantasy

Plot:

An aging silent film actress hires a private eye and his wacky but helpful assistant to track down her missing daughter...

Awards:

4 wins

Cast

Morio Agata	...	Magician
Fujiko Fukamizu	...	Madame Cherryblossom
Moe Kamura	...	Bellflower
Kyôko Kusajima	...	Old lady in the comb shop
Shunsui Matsuda	...	Akagaki, the benshi
Tatsuo Nakamoto	...	White mask
Tsuneo Nakamoto	...	White mask
Akira Oizumi	...	Magician
Koji Otake	...	Kobayashi
Kazunari Ozasa	...	Magician
Shirô Sano	...	Uotsuka
Yoshio Yoshida	...	Matsunosuke, the director

Also Known As:

To Sleep so as to Dream (International: English title) (literal English title)

Runtime:

81 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Eizo Tanteisha

Simply Magical

This is the most impossibly beautiful film I've ever seen, a mediation on loss, longing, beauty and time. Using old film techniques, humor, Dadaism, and glorious black and white cinematography, it is also a fanciful homage to early silent cinema in Japan. Especially the Benshi, the silent film narrators. This was a tradition in Russia and Poland as well, a narrator or actor would read the inter-titles of a silent film, adding commentary and at times their own political bent to a feature. This was popular throughout silent cinema's reign, and particularly relevant in industrial or agrarian communities with lower literacy rates. Shunsui Matsuda, a Benshi who traveled throughout coal mining regions of post-war Japan where shortages made re-runs of silent films popular entertainment, appears in Hayashi's film. (Mr. Matsuda is also to be lauded for his work preserving old films, many prints he acquired by searching in thrift shops and restoring them. His excellent book, "The Benshi: Japanese Silent Film Narrators", details both his work and the Benshi tradition.) In many ways comparable to Mohsen Makhmalbaf's "Once Upon a Time Cinema", though without the political commentary, Hayashi's work creates a complete magical world combining both the past and the present. Now if only I could get a copy on DVD.