OVERVIEW:
Kurosawa opens his work "Dreams", which features recurrent dreams he has experienced throughout his life, with Sunshine Through the Rain. This particular segment features a young boy, probably aged around ten, who is presumed to be Kurosawa himself. The dream is almost fairytale-like, and follows the formalism of a dream with bright colors, and a wandering michevious child. The short scene begins with rain, that the boy watches outside beneath a beam. His mother scurries around in the back picking up items off the table that may become soiled with the downpour. The boy doesn't move. There's an old Japanese folk myth that "magical things happen if there is sunshine when it rains." This is precisely the situation in the dream. It's bright, yet pouring. The mother, who was given special stage instructiosn to act just as Kurosawa's mother did, approaches the boy and tells him that he mustn't wander off in these conditions. That "foxes hold their wedding processions in this weather. And they don't like anyone to see them. If you do, they'll be very angry." A very indescrite warning coming from Kurosawa's mother, and yet the first thing the boy proceeds to do is go out and find such a procession, get caught by the foxes, and face an ultimate dilema, shunning his family and putting himself in line for death if they do not accept his apology. In face, when he makes it back home following being caught, his mother already knows what he has done that has brought great dishonor upon himself and their household. "You saw something you should not have seen." She hands him a large knife, which he says he must kill himself with for his actions, and that she cannot let him back into the house unless he begs their forgiveness and recieves it. If he does not, he must use the knife on himself and pay the ultimate price for his disobedience. The segment ends here, as the boy walks to meet his sure death, as his mother says the foxes almost never forgive. We never find out whether he is granted leniency or dies at his own hand, as he follows the path to the end of the rainbow and the screen goes black.
ANALYSIS MICRO
The entirety of Kurosawa's work in "Dreams" can be viewed psychoanaltyically if not simply for the fact that they are all dreams he has experienced on multiple occasions, as if his subconscious sees to reveal something to himself expressly. However, I feel Sunshine Through the Rain could have its own full length anaylsis done on it. A boy goes against his mother's wishes and does not heed her warning to stay out of the forest and away from the fox wedding procession. Instead, he defies and heads immediately from this warning to woods. A tumultuous relationship with his mother may be derived from this as a secondary understanding ass he knowingly disobeys her although she grants him adequate warning as to what will happen if he does go looking for the procession. "They'll be very angry."
Also, after being caught by the foxes and upon his return home, the incomplete hero's journey is observed. His mother already knows what he has done, and appears to shut herself out from the boy, not allowing him to re-enter the home or even cross the threshold because he has shunned their family and brought dishonor upon himself. The archetypal protective mother here becomes non-existant as she hands him a knife and tells him he must kill himself for his disobedience, or otherwise beg the foregiveness of the foxes who more than likely will not heed him. The potency of this scene can only suggest deep guilt on Kurosawa's part that must have come from disobeying his mother.This dream was recurring because of the strong guilt he carried after committing his shameful act.
ANALYSIS MACRO
Dreams are seen as, in Freud's words, "a disguised fullfilment of a supressed or repressed wish."(1990, The Interpretation of Dreams).Kurosawa's dream is extremely potent on not only symbolism, a young boy who represents innocence, and an archetypal relationship between mother and son in which she tries to protect him. But, like many young and curious children, Kurosawa wanders and finds himself exactly where he should not be.The sequence iteself seems to reflect on Kurosawa's own demons as a child which manifested in his curiousities and anxieties that ultimately led to a rocky relationship with his motehr, and overall his family, whom the rest we do not see here. Often times, psychoanalyis comes from childhood experiences, as covered in the introduction, and childhood events stem into larger conceptions that shape the author. Perhaps this is why Kurosawa's unconscious chose a young boy facing intangible odds.
Guilt is another strong factor of Sunshine Through the Rain. Immediately upon seeing the procesion, it's clear the boy knows he did wrong in being there, and he doesn't appear overly surprised at the reaction of his mother, which is cold and heartless. Pent up feelings for her might have been seen here, frustration that could not protect him from his own deeds as many mothers try to do when their children are accused of an action. She breaks the mold of an archetypal mother in handing her young son a knife shamefully. She also appears to take some of the blame on herself as she turns her back and shuts him, and she repeats to him "I can't let you in." Her expression is unmoving, yet reveals disappointment in his actions. It seems that with the very direct stage instructions that Kurosawa gave to the actress to mirror his mother, Kurosawa must have seen that face once or twice before, and was haunted by it seeing as he had this dream multiple times throughout his life.
The real crux of Sunshine Through The Rain explores forbidden curiousity and disobedience of the law, natural or otherwise, that forces the offender to face the consequences that are derived from these actions. In this case, a very severe punishment with a very bleak outlook on turnaorund was observed, for something that may seem to the viewer, trivial. A young boy faced with the task of suicide due to simply not listening to his mother. It would appear that in Kurosawa's conscious world he may have committed some crime or caused some harm that strained his relationship with his mother, and this was carried into his surreal dream sequence because of his strong feelings of guilt on the matter. At the end of the dream, we never find out whether Kurosawa was able to smooth out relations with the fox and spare his own life, or if he was ever able to come home and be welcomed again by his mother. Ironically enough, at young Kurosawa's fate rests at the end of a rianbow which in western culture is where people often assimilate riches to be found. Yet here we see a young boy heading to, as his mother put it, unavoidable death. The guilt from his awakened state for performing some specific act which he was instructed not to is mirrored in the dream, as well as the strained relationship with his mother that breaks nearly all motherly archetypal norms at the end, yet begins as the definition of the archetypal mother, who guides and directs her child. Upon the conviction of his deeds, she ceases to provide him emotional support and nurtering, and becomes hardened, thus putting on display their strained relationship, which appears to really bother Kurosawa as it's one of the main themes of the recurrent dream. His guilt and their relationship does not seem to be in a favorable place when the curtain is drawn on this dream.
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