Dreams

Day Forty Two.

This is the dream I dreamed. I was walking on a long dark hallway. Everything was black and white. There were people with the same faces all around me. They had the face of a hideous man that I’ve never seen before and they were all walking backwards, seemingly oblivious of my presence. I walked past them and headed towards the light at the end of the hallway. There was a man there, waiting for me. He had the same face as everyone else yet he was smiling at me. He was holding a black and blue poster as if he wanted me to look at it. I looked at the poster and saw pictures of people singing on-stage, all with the same faces as everyone else. I shook my head and stepped away. Then something caught my attention. A staircase. The light was coming from above that staircase. I went closer to it only to realize that it’s only a painting on the wall. The surface was completely flat but it was painted in a way that gives an illusion that it was three dimensional. But it looked so real. I knew it was real. I closed my eyes and took one step forward. And when I opened them, I realized, I was walking up the staircase. When I reached the next landing, I saw a bright light coming from a slightly opened door. I walked towards the door and cautiously opened it. It was a public restroom. There were white tiled walls and floors, white flourescent lights, white cubicles and sinks, and a large bathroom mirror. It looked completely ordinary except from the fact that every inch of it was covered with books of all shapes, colors and sizes. There were books everywhere! Scattered all over the floor, stacked above the sinks, hanging on the ceiling. I walked inside, careful not to step on any of the books. I headed towards the last cubicle as if I was being drawn to it. I slowly opened the door and peered inside. There was a mountain of books stacked on top of the toilet and at the tip of that mountain was a tiny window, as big as cat’s door. I climbed up the mountain of books until I reached the window. It was too small for me to fit in, yet I tried to squeeze into it. And I managed to get in! Once I reached the other side, my eyes were blinded for a second by an extremely bright light and I had to close them for a while. When I opened my eyes again, I was lying face down in the middle of a forest. It was autumn and the ground was covered by orange and golden brown leaves. The trees were also of the same colors. The sun was shining brightly and everything was so bright they looked like they were ablaze. Suddenly, a beautiful woman wearing a purple velvet 18th century dress, a matching purple hat with white feathers and holding a purple parasol, came out from behind one of the trees. She smiled at me and tipped her head to one side as if she was asking me to follow her. As I was about to stand up, the alarm clock sounded and I woke up.

Pretty strange huh? But that’s how dreams are. Strange, incomprehensible and confusing. This dream is the only one I could remember in detail. It was a dream I had when I was in highschool. I dreamt about it over and over for days, always waking up at the exact same moment when I’m about to follow the purple lady. And then, one day, I suddenly stopped dreaming about it but I was never able to forget it.

You must be wondering why I’m suddenly talking about dreams. It actually has something to do with my latest obsession: “Yume Juya” (10 Nights of Dreams). This is an anthology that was released last year by Nikkatsu. It features ten short films based on the book of the same name by famed 19th/20th century author Soseki Natsume. The film gathers together some of the best Japanese directors around, including several names who will be familiar to J-horror fans. The cast also includes some of Japan’s biggest names like Toda Erika, Kashii Yu, Koizumi Kyoko, Sadao Abe, Yamamoto Koji, Honjo Manami and our very own “L”, Matsuyama Ken’ichi. This movie was shown in the Vancouver Film Festival last year and will be released by Cinema Epoch in the USA on October 2008.

This films reminds me a lot of the animated movie “Paprika” and the graphic novel: “Sandman: The Dream Hunters” by the macabre master Neil Gaiman and the genius behind the Final Fantasy characters, AmanoYoshitaka . Neil Gaiman’s short stories are the type of stories that doesn’t seem to make sense yet they’re incredibly clever. They bring a chill down your spine and leaves you with a funny feeling in the pit of your stomach. I don’t know how to explain it but his stories always leaves me in some sort of dream-like trance. They’re unnerving, insane and sometimes seriously disturbing but they always manage to make you feel emotions you’ve never felt before.

Natsume’s Soseki’s “10 Nights of Dreams” made me feel the exact same way. When I watched it, I didn’t feel like I was watching a movie, I felt like I was entering someone else’s dreams and nightmares. Everything just seemed so surreal and strange. Each short story’s very beautiful in an eerie and eccentric way. Some will leave you with your mouth wide-open and with one giant question mark floating above your head. Others would make you wonder if you should laugh or cry or just sit in a state of disbelief. I asked my sister to watch this while we were chatting online. And after she did, she was totally speechless. She didn’t know how to react. She didn’t know if it was brilliant or stupid, if it was scary or silly, if she should applaud or run away. It was just plain weird and leaves you with mixed emotions. And that’s why, I think this is a really brilliant movie and novel (I’ve read the novel after watching the movie) Watching this was just like dreaming. Nothing makes sense, everything’s bizarre yet somehow you understand it and you feel strange things because of it. It has a certain quality that is rarely seen in movies and I absolutely love it!

10 Nights of Dreams is a compilation of 10 short stories or “Dreams” as the author calls them. Each dream has a different theme and had titles like: Love, Anguish, Son, Nostalgia, Fear, Passion, Loneliness, Imagine, Family Love and Egoism. It’s a madhouse of unique creativity and talent of very different directors and actors from various genres. It has everything from horror to action, drama to comedy and any other genre that comes in between.

My favorites are the 7th and 10th dreams. The 7th Dream, “Loneliness”, was directed by Kawahara Masaaki and the brilliant Amano Yoshitaka (Yes, the same Amano Yoshitaka I talked about earlier). It’s the only animated film in this anthology and it is visually stunning. The animation is superb, you could clearly see its similarities with the Final Fantasy series. I’m a Final Fantasy geek so it’s no surprise that I fell in love with the surreal and very dream-like world in this short film. The lead male character even reminded me of Squall’s emo-ness and the ship here greatly resembles the one in Final Fantasy IX. There isn’t much of a story in this vignette though, but people like me could easily relate to the main character. The main character, who strangely resembles “D” of “Vampire Hunter D” (Another Amano Yoshitaka creation), was a lonely traveler who questions his own existence. He asks the same questions that I often asked in this blog: “Can one be truly called “alive” when you’re living such a mediocre existence?” “Why is it that even though you’re surrounded by people, no one seemed to really care?”. The title suited this dream very well. Even though the colors were vibrant and there were wonderful and magical creatures floating all around the screen, you could feel the sorrow of the dark and gloomy traveler. The only thing I didn’t like about this vignette is the terrible English voice dubbing. The voice actors did a horrible job and was not able to convey the proper emotions with their voices. It’s like they were simply reading the lines. It was so bad it even made me cringe. I wish they just dubbed it in Japanese or they should have at least cast American voice actors like in the Advent Children movie.

Anyway, my most favorite short film in this anthology, and probably everyone’s favorite is the 10th dream, “Egoism”. It was directed by Yamaguchi Yudai of Battlefield Baseball and Meatball Machine and stars non-other than my beloved “L”, Matsuyama Ken’ichi and Honjo Manami. Ken’ichi once again proves how fearless he is when it comes to portraying eccentric characters. This is without a doubt, his weirdest role yet. In this short film, Ken’ichi plays the role of Shotaro, an extremely handsome young man who gets the attention of all the women. But unknown to them, he is also a serial killer who mercilessly kill people he considers to be ugly. One day, a beautiful woman came to town and Shotaro immediately fell in love with her. But the woman have secrets of her own and she’s about to teach Shotaro a lesson he will never forget.

This short film was both stupid and clever at the same time! It would drive you insane! It’s funny, disgusting and makes no sense at all but you will end up having a huge smile on your face after watching it. This is by far, the most entertaining short film in this whole anthology and it made me want to watch it over and over again. It made my brain turn to goo with its silly antics and out-of-this-world ideas. The Willy Wonka parody was seriously bizarre! And the fact that Ken’ichi looked adorable in this film is also a huge plus!

But seriously, I could talk all day about how amazing this film is. It’s the only live-action film that made me feel the same way I felt when I watched “Spirited Away” and “Paprika”. It has the weirdness of Mirrormask without having the need to use over-the-top special effects. It’s brilliant and cheesy and just plain confusing! I love it! I’m a weird girl after all!

On a totally unrelated note, I finally finished Tantei Gakuen Q the other day. It is by far one my favorite dramas now! It’s completely flawed and predictable as a mystery drama but I absolutely love its story and characters. The ending was so sweet and left a huge smile on my face. I think that’s why I loved this drama so much. It just has that innocence and youthfulness that I rarely see in dramas. It’s such a great and completely idealistic story about friendship and I just couldn’t help but smile while watching the characters interact with each other. I’m surely gonna miss it!

After watching the drama, I watched the “Tantei Gakuen Q Special”. It’s a prequel to the drama so it was aired one year before the series. Everyone looked so young and tiny in this special. They really looked like little kids! I couldn’t believe how much they’ve grown in one year. The special took place before they’ve entered the Detective Academy. Kyuu, Ryuu, Megu, Kazuma and Kinta were living separate and ordinary lives and by some twist of fate, they met during the entrance examination for the Morihiko Dan Detective Academy. There were tons of other people (mostly adults) who took the entrance exams but little by little, they all got eliminated until there were only six people left. Then one of those 6 people got murdered and it’s up to our five heroes to solve the mystery. This was their first murder case as a team and we get to see how their friendship really started. It was really fun seeing them work together for the first time. But it was kinda weird since they all looked so different. Kyuu was so skinny and his voice was so much smaller. Ryuu was too cute and tiny unlike the cool and mysterious Ryuu in the drama. He looked so so young in this Special especially because of his childish voice. Megu still looked a little boyish and was still just a little girl in this Special unlike the pretty young lady she has become in the drama. Kazuma was played by a completely different actor so I was a little annoyed by his character here. Kinta was the only one who didn’t change much except from his outfit. Speaking of outfits, it’s weird not seeing them in their signature outfits. Oh and, Megu and Ryuu’s hair looked so strange. Were they wearing wigs in this Special? Anyway, it was a really fun and feel-good Special and the mystery to be solved here was so much more unpredictable than the ones in the series. I wasn’t able to figure-out the mystery behind the giant concrete block and I was so glad! It was the first time in Tantei Gakuen Q that the mystery was difficult to solve! Although it was still quite easy to figure out who the culprit was. But all in all, it was a great Special and I was grinning till the end!

Since I finished Tantei Gakuen Q, I’m moving on to the next mystery drama on my list: “Galileo”. I was actually torn between Galileo and Kuitan (both are detective dramas) but Galileo’s ratings were higher so I picked it over Kuitan. Along with Galileo, I’ve also decided to watch Nagasawa Masami’s yakuza drama, “Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu” (Sailor Suit and Machine Gun). It’s about a highschool girl who suddenly finds herself as the boss of a Yakuza family. It looks really interesting and it only has 7 episodes so I should be able to finish it in no time.

Well, that’s it for now. Anway, if you wanna see the kick-ass trailer of Yume Juya, you can find it on youtube or on my multiply site “http://yankumi7.multiply.com”. The 10th short film: “Egoism” is also there. Enjoy!

End of Day Forty Two.