Have you ever watched an Akira Kurosawa movie? They are dreamy and disturbing. They have a way of capturing movement that makes you feel like you are out in space.  My favorite film of his is Dreams which was a delightful magical realism film.   In film class, we often dissected his films and noted that a heavy theme in his films was that of the complex relationship between an older and a younger man, who serve each other as master and disciple, respectively. In his films, including Dreams the landscape often played a major role. I tended to view it as another example of master and disciple. We serve the land-or at one point we did.

In that vein, today is world health day, with an emphasis on diabetes that has risen across the globe partly due to lack of exercise (along with bad nutrition and lack of access to healthy foods).  Today, go out and enjoy the landscapes all around us. Go ahead and dream and be healthy while at it.

Today, I celebrate the landscape and Kurosawa’s dreamy magical realism.