In an attempt to post more in January

watch kurosawa's dreams!!! a beautiful surrealist film

heres an explication of the allegory of the peach orchard:
(the link is for another scene in the movie)

Forgotten Life


Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams is a surrealist film that involves eight vignettes each introduced as a dream the narrator has had. The plot is not to be understood literally, because of its allegorical nature and content. Items, colors, music, characters and anything else found inside each story is important to the brevity of meaning the director (Kurosawa) wants the viewer to realize. This essay aims to give a short synopsis of the plot of the second dream “The Peach Orchard,” but more importantly aims to explicate the hidden meaning behind what happens.

In the “Peach Orchard” a young boy serves up some food for himself, his sister and her friends. After gazing at the decorative dolls (which are there to celebrate the peach harvest) he notices he made one too many servings of food, because he thought there was another girl. His sister does not believe his findings and thinks he is sick. Angry, the boy looks around only to find another girl dressed in pink and holding bells. She runs off, but he follows her all the way to the devastated peach orchard (his parents cut down all the peach trees). She disappears when he is confronted by the spirits of the peach blossoms. They scold him for what his family did, but after realizing how much he loved the blossoms they show him the peach orchard in bloom one last time. Afterward the lone girl reappears, then disappears leaving one lone peach tree.

“The Peach Orchard” is ripe with symbolism. The intrinsic value of nature is the message conveyed by the scene. The spirits show themselves to teach the naïve what they are actually doing to nature. The peach blossoms are cut, so the spirits are neglected. The spirits are full of life, as in nature. The spirits thought the child was naïve; that he did not truly understand the significance of the dolls, the holiday or what it is to have a peach orchard in bloom. However, the little boy was older in intellect than even his parents, because he saw through his parent’s action and understood the intrinsic beauty of the trees. No profit is greater than the value of nature; therefore, his parents made a grave mistake.

The boy seems to hallucinate the girl to bring himself closer to the devastation. Similar to an open casket, he wanted to get closer to the death of what he loved and to say a final goodbye. The girl in pink symbolizes a peach tree. At the beginning of the scene the boy is the only one to notice there is something missing (i.e. the sixth girl). His sister and friends do not notice the being missing; they represent those that see nature as a way to profit (like their parents). The moral here is that killing a tree is equivalent to killing a person. Nature has life, and it is hard to see by those who turn a blind eye, but the life is there.

On a literal translation, the boy must have hallucinated the spirits, but what he sees is too vivid and articulate to be a mere hallucination. The dolls dance and sway slowly back and forth in union like trees moving in wind. The spirits are showing that nature is alive and has a heart if its own. The heart is brought about by all the dolls moving at once. Everything is connected together in harmony as nature and all its beings are connected as one ultimate entity. To cut down trees is to end a small part of natures being, but any death is significant to nature as a whole and especially to any beings directly connected (e.g. the boy and wildlife living there). The boy says “Peaches can be bought, but where can you buy a whole orchard in bloom?” The whole is worth more than the sum of the parts. The death of the orchard is also a death in the heart of the boy.

While the spirits dance soothing Japanese music is played, but when the boy notices the peach orchard is gone western music (classical, and an ugly organ chord) is played mirroring each way of life. The Japanese music symbolizes the traditional way of loving nature, while the western music is played when the trees are dead symbolizing the western style of thought. Brushing over the intrinsic value of nature and seeing it as a means to money. Furthermore this is also symbolized when the boy refuses to eat the extra serving of food. His sister is fine with the waste of sustainable resource, while the boy does not want to take more than he should. Food comes from nature, therefore, he does not want to take more from nature than he should.

Lastly, the bells seem to represent a deeper understanding of life and death. The old man in the last dream clangs bells in a funeral procession, but does so as a celebration of the dead. In this scene, the bells are used to bring the boy closer to the devastated peach orchard; hence, he is brought closer to death and its significance. He is given a deeper understanding and realization when the spirits scold and dance for him. After they leave, he sees the lone peach tree while at the same time the bells clang. This represents the fluidity of life and death, since another tree is now growing as the circle of life continues.