Editor’s Note No. 74 : I had this dream
Setting aside the preparations for the exchange tournament scheduled for November, I completed the special training camp. The day before the camp, my knee hurt and I could not sleep well. I endured the pain and finished my duties as an instructor, but as always, I found myself regretting many things afterward: “Why couldn’t I teach in a more enjoyable way?” “Why didn’t I smile more?” “Why did I criticize them too much?” Such reflections filled my mind. How foolish it is. I want to fix this part of my personality, but at the moment I simply have no emotional room to do so.
Even so, Mr. Ogino, one of my students, is always there to support me. I am truly grateful. Thanks to him, I somehow managed to complete the camp.
However, without any time to rest, I went on a trip to Nagano with my wife’s uncle and aunt, who had come from the United States. My entire family has been greatly supported by them, and both my wife and I feel we must cherish them as if they were our own parents. Still, the pain in my knee and my sleep disorder made the trip difficult.
Yet there were many good things as well, one of which was our visit to Azumino. The scenery there was magnificent. The satoyama of Tatsuno is also wonderful, but the landscape of Azumino was equally impressive. By chance, we visited a wasabi farm that had been used as a filming location for Akira Kurosawa’s movie “Dreams.” A beautifully clear river flowed through the area, and the waterwheel and watermill that Kurosawa had built for the film still remained. The river water was just as clear as it had been depicted in the movie. It seemed that no fish lived in that river. My wife’s uncle asked, “Why aren’t there any fish here?” I answered, somewhat randomly, “Perhaps the water is too clean for fish to live in.” I do not know whether fish actually do not live there, nor whether the reason is truly “because the water is too clean.” But in Azumino, I remembered the saying, “When the water is too clear, no fish can live.” Society is the same: when the water is too pure, people cannot live there. This phrase seems to come from an ancient Chinese text, and it also implies that when a person is too virtuous or too pure, they inevitably become isolated.
Although this place—and Azumino as well—is somewhat tourist-oriented, the surrounding areas are not overly developed. Perhaps that is why their beauty remains intact. Some might argue that even in worldly, urban spaces there is beauty. However, I believe such beauty does not exist in the place itself, but rather in the hearts of people. Moreover, one’s sense of “original landscape” differs depending on where one grew up. I was raised near a busy downtown district, but the area around my grandmother’s home—where my father often took me—was filled with mountains, rice fields, and waterways where fireflies lived.
I spent several weeks there every summer. Likewise, even a short distance away from the downtown area, one could see mountains, clear streams, rice fields, and farmland everywhere. And if one went farther, the land opened toward the sea. Those landscapes are my childhood memories. Perhaps that is why the scenery of Azumino felt nostalgic and stirred something within me. Yet such landscapes must exist in many places throughout the world, and I believe that human beings must never forget them.
I remembered that I once thought Kurosawa’s “Dreams” was a good film. After recalling its scenes during the trip, I watched it again when I returned home. To be honest, if it were not a Kurosawa film, perhaps no one would have gone to see it. That may sound contradictory, but I still think it is a good movie. It is simply that, in terms of profitability, I doubt it would ever break even.
Akira Kurosawa’s Film “Dreams”
Akira Kurosawa’s “Dreams” begins with the words, “This is the kind of dream I had,” and consists of eight short episodes—an omnibus film. The Azumino scene appears in the final episode, where the images are beautiful and the music enchanting. The film also contains philosophical themes characteristic of Kurosawa, though some may find them didactic.
The episode that left the strongest impression on me was the one in which Van Gogh appears.
The story begins with a man viewing a Van Gogh exhibition. The man then enters the world of the paintings and encounters Van Gogh himself painting in a field. When the man says, “You must be Van Gogh,” Van Gogh replies with the following words:
“Why don’t you paint?”
“Don’t look for scenery to paint.”
“When you look closely, all of nature is beautiful. In it, I lose awareness of myself.”
“Then nature becomes a painting, as if in a dream. No—the truth is that I devour nature and wait.”
“Then the painting forms itself and appears before me.”
“The difficult part is capturing it.”
When the man asks, “What must you do for that?”, Van Gogh answers:
“Work.”
“Work desperately, like a locomotive…”
“If I don’t hurry, there won’t be enough time.”
“I have very little time left to paint.”
The man then asks, “It looks like you’re injured.”
Van Gogh replies:
“This? Yesterday, while painting my self-portrait, I couldn’t get my ear right, so I cut it off.”
“The sun threatens me, telling me to paint.”
“I can’t stay here any longer.”
Saying this, Van Gogh rushes off and disappears.
I think I watched this film around fifteen years ago. I have always liked this Van Gogh episode and the final watermill episode. From deep within me, I can hear voices saying, “Do not search for scenery to paint,” “Hurry,” “Paint,”“There is no more time.”
In this sense, I feel the same way as Kurosawa’s Van Gogh. But unlike him, I have not yet devoted myself completely. I must devote myself more fully. I must unite my life with my work. Not the ego, but the sense cultivated within the subconscious; I must trust in that “painting” and continue to create. Even if I never sell a single painting in my lifetime, I must keep painting. No one will understand the existence of that subconscious, but I must follow it nevertheless.（Akira Masuda)
