SCIENCE,TECHNOLOGY &

SOCIETY
Akiro Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker and
painter who directed thirty films in a career
spanning over five decades. He is regarded as
one of the most important and influential
filmmakers in film history. Kurosawa entered
the Japanese film industry in 1936, following a
brief stint as a painter. Eight episodes
exploring the costs of war,the perils of nuclear
power and humankind's need to harmonize
with nature.
VILLAGE OF THE WATERMILLS
The Village of Watermill by Akira Kurosawa the
released Dreams, consisting of vignettes based on
his personal nighttime visions.This short film is the
last in Kurosawa’s collection of eight shorts called
“dreams".It was inspired by actual dreams that
Kurosawa claimed to have had repeatedly. It was
his first film in 45 years in which he was the sole
author of the screenplay including theVillage of
Watermills.
The main theme of the film,is celebrating life
and nature and it has a major criticism or social issue against science and
technology as
harbingers of pollution and misery.

The history without any technology on how technology is very useless.

He portrays it to be a serene and a peaceful way of living,a“natural way of

life”.

The film ends with a celebration of a villagers

life. Celebrating death in this manner is rarely,if ever seen in modern
culture.Treating a burial in this manner emits an extreme amount of faith in
a life beyond the one we now occupy and it will take a truly enlightened
group to carry it out.
Kurosawa’s story takes place,obviously,in a dream that spans time and
space.The traveler is of a world of electricity,our world,and the old man by
the riverbank knows the pitfalls and perils of our world.The village is not of
the past,but of a place out of time..

Kurosawa’s dream was just such an anti-environment

They always think they can make something better.Especially scientists,they
are so proud of their inventions.What’s worse,most people are too.They view
them as if they were miracles.They worship them.

Kurosawa denounces the destruction of nature resulting from the misuse

of science and technology. By portraying an alternative natural way
of life, he leads to persuade his viewers to preserve a healthy ecosystem for
future generations.
 RESOURCES

• https://sherlock.whitman.edu/primo
explore/fulldisplay/CP71181449120001451/WHITC_NEW
• https://mikeplugh.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/village-of-the-watermills-
kurosawas-media-ecology/
QUESTIONS