To Sleep so as to Dream (1986)

Watching this, one really feels that Kaizo Hayashi loves the movies. This is a movie that could only have been made by someone whose love for the cinema is infinite, this dream that we call cinema. People forget how much space movies take up in our cultural consciousness, but Hayashi is not one of them. The ending of this film, in which a dying actress wants nothing more than to finish her first movie that was never screened sums this up. We reflect our lives onto the screen in their purest and most idealistic form, and in turn we are imbued with a sense of emotion and belonging. While watching this I remembered the first time I went to the movies to see A Bug's Life. The dark and cavernous theater terrified me, but once the picture started I was awash with joy and awe. There is something about this film that conjures up that universality of watching movies, any movie, every movie. I love it.