Ten Nights of Dreams

2006, Japan

Director: Yoshitaka Amano, Kon Ichikawa, Akio Jissoji, Masaaki Kawahara, Suzuki Matsuo, Miwa Nishikawa, Atsushi Shimizu, Takashi Shimizu, Keisuke Toyoshima, Yudai Yamaguchi, Nobuhiro Yamashita

Writer: Saseki Natsume, Shinichi Inozume, Gataro Man, Miwa Nishikawa, Takashi Shimizu, Keisuke Toyoshima, Nobuhiro Yamashita

Cast: Kenichi Matsuyama, Kyoko Koizumi, Sadao Abe, Matsuo Suzuki, Pierre Taki, Mikako Ichikawa

Producers: Tstomu Kuno, Hiroki Ota, Yutaka Tsunoda

Genre: Drama, Fantasy, The Kind Of Stuff That Gives You A Headache If You Haven’t Slept Much The Night Before

Rating: Not Yet Rated

Distributor: Nikkatsu

Web: www.yume-juya.jp

Running Time: 100 minutes

In 1906, famed Japanese novelist Soseki Natsume wrote that one of his greatest hopes was for “the people of 100 years hence to solve my riddle”. I’m not entirely sure what riddle he was speaking of, but presumably it was something along the lines of “what the hell am I talking about?”. If so, his hopes are unfulfilled, because nothing in this adaptation of his work makes any sense. I wasn’t really expecting it to, since it’s a Japanese films interpreting dreams. My dreams are okay, though I’m getting kind of sick of seeing Heather Matarazzo from Roseanne’s braces turn into Doctor Octopus-like prehensile microfilament wires and slice DJ into stewing beef. But judging from what the Japanese seem to think reality is, their dreams should be something quite bizarre indeed. But, it turns out, not quite in the way I had anticipated. Sure, they’re strange, but not, like psychedelic worm monsters feeding off terror and night sweats strange. Rather, there’s a lot more sitting alone in a train station waiting for someone to show up, or arguing with subtitles. Granted, they’re more exciting than most of my dreams, but quite frankly I’d prefer the one I have where I get sued by Len Wein to the one in this film where a guy sits in a room full of clocks for ten minutes.

Some of the shorts are boring, some are intriguing; all are confusing and mildly annoying. Of the ten films, each by different directors, there are three or four that stand out. Takashi Shimizu’s short manages to parlay its nonsense into an unsettling tableaux about dead children, and there’s a black and white segment about a sculptor who carves idols by doing the Robot that’s quite amusing. An anime segment is so beautiful it can almost be forgiven for having dialogue torn straight from a grade 6 creative writing class, and the final short mixes westerns, Road Runner cartoons, and buckets of blood into a delicate mix that’s only partially spoiled by a gas-passing joke for all the six-olds and glue-sniffers in the crowd. While each short has a different style, they do still unite, but while the effect they acheive is dreamlike, it’s not the sort of dream I’d like to have.

Rating: 4 on 10

alkratina@comicbookbin.com