Published at January 25, 2002
in Rants.
[ kaleidoscope dreams ]
Recently a close friend of my popped me a most intriguing and though-provoking question - Do we dream in colour, or black and white ? I believe for most people the immediate answer would be of course in colour, for that is how we percieve vision in our everyday lifes. But if you gave it alittle more thought and probe your memory - are you very sure it was in colour ? Bear in mind here that the actual dream is very different from the one that you’re trying to reconstruct now as your try to visualize it, for your mind would be trying to rebuilt the bits together and your perception could inadvertently add in colours that did not exist in the original dream. How then, can one remember ? Certainly not when your are in the midst of your dream for one cannot be full conscious when that is happening.
Perhaps dreams aren’t really in colour, or black and white, but existing on a higher plane of consciousness where colour would no longer be necessary to convey those images. Or maybe they are both in colour and black and white, or monochromatic, or any other colour that can be conjured up by our imagination, but which is longer clear to us once we open our eyes. I can’t say for sure which. Unless of course, anyone were to tell me that they had a particularly reddish, or bluish dream yesterday. Keep dreaming and find out.
Okie…here i go again…
This is also a reason why I created a fantasy set in Japan. Though it is a fairy tale, I don’t want to make it like a western type of story which allows many possibilities for escape, and it is likely to be taken as a cliche. However, I would prefer to say that it is rather a direct descendent of ” Suzume no Oyada ” ( The Sparrows’ Inn - a trap in which sparrows lure people by food and pleasant surroundings ) or ” Nezumi no Goten ” ( The Mouse’s Castle - similar to ” The Sparrow’s Inn “), which appear in Japanese folktales. Our ancestors had been dining at the Suzume no Oyada and enjoying a feast at the Nezumi no Goten.
I created a world where Yubaba lives in a pseudo-western style to make ir seem as if it is something that has been seen somewhere else and to make it uncertain whether it is a dream or reality. And also, Japanese traditional design is a rich source for the imagination. We are often not aware of its richness and the uniqueness of our cultural heritage - from stories, traditions rites, designs, and tales of the gods. It is true that ” Kachi-kachi Yama ” and ” Momotaro” are no longer persuasive. However, I regret to sat that it is a poor idea to push all the traditional things into a small folk-culture world. Surrounded by high technology and its flimsy devices, children are more and more loseing their roots. We must inform them of the richness of our traditions.
Okie…this is the continuation of Miyazaki’s intro for Spirited Away form the previous post…
Words are power. In the world Chihiro wandered into, words have a great importance and immutability. At “Yuya” where “Yubaba” rules, if Chihiro were to say “I don’t want to do this” or “I want to go home”, she would be eliminated by the sorceress. She would be made to wonder about with nowhere to go until she vanishes or is made into a hen to lay eggs until she is eaten. On the contrary, if Chihiro says “I will work here”, even a sorceress can’t ignore her. In these days, words are thought to be light an unimportant like bubbles, and no more than the reflection of a vacuous reality. It is still true that words can be powerful. The fact is, however, that powerless words are proliferating unnecessarily.
To take a name away from a person is an attempt to keep them under perfect control. Sen shuddered when she realized that she was beginning to forget her own name. And besides, every time she goes to see her parents at the pigpen, she becomes used to seeing her parents as pigs. In the world where Yubaba rules, people must always live among dangers which might swallow them up.
In a dangerous world, Chihiro began to come alive. The sulky and languid character will come to have a stunning and attractive facial expression by the end of the film. The nature of the world hasn’t been changed in the least. I am arguing in this film that words are our will, ourselves and our power.
To be continued…
