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Intentional or coincidental? Charlotte goes to Kyoto and watches the Japanese couple pass. As they prepare to ascend the steps, the man turns to the woman and offers her his hand. She puts her hand in his and they continue up the steps. Charlotte watches this closely.

In the scene after the fire alarm goes off, Charlotte and Bob are sitting in the bar staring at each other. Bob offers his right hand and Charlotte shakes it with her right. Seconds later, Bob and Charlotte are holding hands (her left in his right) just like the Kyoto couple were doing.

Anyone else notice this?

never made that connection
I'd say it's coincidental, but it is a nice coincidence

jml2 wrote:I'd say it's coincidental, but it is a nice coincidence

I agree, but just the fact that they did something as intimate as holding hands makes me purr.

and in this overly exposed world of ours...intimacy in its purest form is becoming more valuable. .Holding hands is one of these intimacies...

That moment in Kyoto when Charlotte watches the ceremonial wedding procession is a very strong intertextual reference to Akira Kurosawa's film "Dreams" from the early 1990s. Specifically, this moment references the first of the eight episodes in "Dreams" in which the young Kurosawa stand-in character runs away from his home and mother during a rainstorm and ends up witnessing a sacred, traditional wedding procession of foxes. From the little I know about Japanese traditions and mythology, the fox is supposed to be a generally devious shapeshifter who will often play pranks on humans, and indeed, the young boy in this scene is admonished by his mother upon his return that he "went and saw something he should not have seen." As penance, the young boy must venture back out into the woods where he first spied on the foxes and present himself apologetically if they will even confront him.

Metaphorically then, this first scene in Dreams could represent a certain maturation--a young boy experiencing something (in this case, the ritual of marriage with its unspoken mysteries and confusions) before his time.

It's interesting, then, that the scene that Charlotte so intensely observes here is not only one of a wedding but also one that references (if subtly) the early onset of maturity and awareness of the "adult world"--something that Charlotte has been grappling with throughout the film.

No i've never noticed that before but i think you might be onto something. It's very interesting.

Never noticed that, either! Very cool!

Seems like a nice little coincidence to me.

Oh, and I agree with what 'FindingCharlotte' said about the intimacy of holding hands, and the fact that Bob & Charlotte do it is really nice I think.

LostCalls wrote:That moment in Kyoto when Charlotte watches the ceremonial wedding procession is a very strong intertextual reference to Akira Kurosawa's film "Dreams" from the early 1990s. Specifically, this moment references the first of the eight episodes in "Dreams" in which the young Kurosawa stand-in character runs away from his home and mother during a rainstorm and ends up witnessing a sacred, traditional wedding procession of foxes. From the little I know about Japanese traditions and mythology, the fox is supposed to be a generally devious shapeshifter who will often play pranks on humans, and indeed, the young boy in this scene is admonished by his mother upon his return that he "went and saw something he should not have seen." As penance, the young boy must venture back out into the woods where he first spied on the foxes and present himself apologetically if they will even confront him.

Metaphorically then, this first scene in Dreams could represent a certain maturation--a young boy experiencing something (in this case, the ritual of marriage with its unspoken mysteries and confusions) before his time.

It's interesting, then, that the scene that Charlotte so intensely observes here is not only one of a wedding but also one that references (if subtly) the early onset of maturity and awareness of the "adult world"--something that Charlotte has been grappling with throughout the film.

Very interesting connection you made, where did you hear of this story?

It's not a story, per se. It's just that I know the Kurosawa film "Dreams" very well, and this moment of Scarlett watching the procession in Kyoto was such a direct visual reference to it that I started thinking about what the thematic connections might be. Plus, we know that Sophia knows a great deal about film in general (and specifically Kurosawa's work given the Suntory ads Kurosawa and Francis Ford Coppola made in the 70s), so my feeling is that this reference is intentional and not mere coincidence.

(By the way, "Dreams" is pretty readily available on DVD via Amazon, etc. It's a great film--pensive, artistic, and emotional. I'd highly recommend it. The only thing is that it can at first seem very slowly paced to a Western viewer given that it draws much of its narrative style from traditional Japanese theatre forms such as the Noh...though visually it is very unlike Noh...more in the dramaturgical structure. Give it a chance and it can grow on you.)