Village of Dreams is a film made in 1996 by Yoichi Higashi. It is about two young twins boys named Seizo and Yukiho who grew up in rural Japan just after World War II. The film documents what happened in the boy’s lives over some unknown length of time in the summer. The films more interesting aspects come from supporting roles. I really wanted to see what happened to the boy named Shinji and the girl who’s family was too poor to even buy her shoes.

Instead the films shown long scenes of things like the two boys walking, fishing, swimming, committing acts of vandalism, and other segments designed to show how the same the twins are. I kept saying to myself “Ok, they’re twins, they’re the same, I get it! What’s happening with Shinji?” Gerald Peary, film critic for the Boston Phonex shares my option:

“The twin boys (Keigo and Shogo Matsuyama) are perfect, bug-eyed little monsters in identical shorts and white undershirts. But there’s little insight as to what makes these rowdy boys into future serious-minded artists, or why, as children, they so love to draw. Too many episodes in the film are random and directionless; the film drags on and on.” - Gerald Peary1

I think the film suffers from what many art films suffer from, a director with an attitude like: “Plot? Oh no, this is an art film. I just have to take long shots oh almost nothing happening, put in some music in spots, and throw in some random symbolism. That is how you make an artistic film.” In the end I’d have to agree with another student’s assessment of the film, “Two and a half hours of my life I can’t ever have back.”