Long Dream (2000)
Strange things lurk in dreams. For Mukoda Tetsurou and the doctors tending to him, things have begun to get stranger as Mukoda begins having longer and longer dreams every night. Can one dream infinity in the span of a night?
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I love this movie so much
Powerful
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
The budget was low and you see it, but I think it works with the story and creates it's own atmosphere. I saw this movie many years ago and couldn't stop thinking about it. The dreams become longer and bond us in them within the bizarre play. I highly recommend it to everyone who enjoys "Uzumaki", although I prefer Nagai Yume for it's philosophical and surprising end.
Way back don't know when, I realized what death might entail. I became really unhappy about what I called the "cessation of conscious being." In other words: "not existing," not finding out what happens next, and next, and next, and Things like the sun going red, or the Big Crunch that used to be going to follow the Big Bang, bothered the hell out of me. How was I going to know what happens next if everywhere and everything mashes down to a singularity? When I tried to image not existing, I'd never quite get there. The last moment just went on and on. I was a runner running ever tinier halves of the distance remaining. Comforting, if irrational, infinity, what Rudy Rucker might call a small infinity, an infinity inside of other infinites, spared me forever the dreaded finish line.Nagai yume plays off this nonsense that I wish wasn't nonsense. First one, then another, patient in a psychiatric clinic falls into a succession of small infinities. Dreams last longer than sleep that contains them, longer and longer until eventually there's no return.Anyway, this is a pretty cool film, better than Higuchinsky's Uzumaki (Spiral) thing, if only because it's shorter with a much smaller world to create. I didn't exactly mind the single special effect, the bodily transformations, but I can see how Nagai yume might have been even better, and ironically even cheaper, without them. Without the crutch, what infinities might the camera have achieved? Think I would have shot this in black and white, for an ambiance like that of A Snake in June or La Jetée. Secondhand images, both video and still, have such import in Nagai yume that La Jetée is a reasonable stretch.
Another adaptation of a Junji Ito manga, this one a 2000 telefilm directed by Higuchinsky (who previously directed the adaptation of Ito's "Uzumaki"). The film was set in a psychiatric hospital where a doctor was treating a man who claimed his nightly dreams were lasting for years and were beginning to change him physically. It was less about horror and more about dreams and obsession. Despite the obvious low budget, Higuchinsky crafted a wonderfully visual film with good acting performances, interesting philosophical concepts, and a surprise ending, all wrapped up in a 58 minute package. Recommended.
Having added this one myself to the IMDB, I figured I would give my personal opinion. Nagai Yume, or, 'Long Dream', is not for everyone. Even die-hard Japanese horror buffs might find it annoying or too bizarre.However, if you enjoy the erratic and twisted movies such as Uzumaki, I highly recommend this film. Done with an immensely small budget, the story manages to make up for the ridiculous special effects. Wonderful acting all around make this a true winner of the obscure, nade-for-TV genre.Give it a shot, if you can find it. I adored it.