Dreams 1990

Vincent Canby, New York Times: It's something altogether new for Kurosawa, a collection of short, sometimes fragmentary films that are less like dreams than fairy tales of past, present and future. The magical and mysterious are mixed with the practical, funny and polemical. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: In the uneven career of Akira Kurosawa, two limiting factors were sentimentality and preachiness, and both come to the fore in this 1990 collection of eight dreams. Read more

Terrence Rafferty, New Yorker: There's greatness in the film's first hour. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Only during a final procession does the old Kurosawa magic get a brief look-in, but by then the hackneyed moralising and dramatic languor have ensured that, despite the well-meaning message, it's hard to care. Read more

Hal Hinson, Washington Post: It's dreamy only in one respect: It's a snooze. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: A magnificent, immensely absorbing experience. Read more