In Kurosawa’s film “Dreams”, “The Peach Orchard” demonstrates very clearly one of the three major beliefs in the Shinto religion. The first belief we learned about in class which was to be grateful to the Kami and their preservation. In the case of this movie there were Kami that represented the peach orchard. The clips I watched showed the outrage of disrespect from the Kami to the boy and his family. In Shinto the people believe that you can be punished by not continuing the religious rite’s to the Kami, which cutting down almost the entire orchard would be a blatant discontinuing to the spirits of the trees. One of the worse sin’s in Shinto are the sins against scared objects and places. So in return for the defilement of the orchard the Kami tell the boy they won’t ever visit his home again, which would have been a horrible punishment and disgrace to the family.
I also watched The Peach Orchard, but did not even think about the disrespect that the boys family showed spirits of the peach tress by cutting them down. You are absolutely correct when you say that it is a sin.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting how you pointed out that the spirits threatened not to visit the boys house ever again, due to the defilement of the peach orchard. This, as well as the criticism the spirits offer the boy, show the somewhat testy nature of the spirits. However, I liked how one of the spirits stuck up for the boy and said that he cried when the orchard was cut down. It was also pretty interesting that the sin of the boys family carries over to the boy and turns into his responsibility to correct.
ReplyDeleteThe theme of being kind to nature is threaded throughout all these movies. Which makes sense, because we need nature to survive as a species. This may be forgotten at times, it seems, because of how we seem to take without ever giving back equally. These movies seem to be a warning to mankind that if we don't rethink our approach, we might be left without.
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