Alright, for my inaugural post here at What Culture, why don’t we have a discussion about dream scenes in movies? Well, since I consider all movies/films to be dreams of their creative team I could’ve listed whole films, but this is going to be specific scenes in movies that attain that visceral, imaginative and weird state of mind.

While they flash before our eyes, they capture the emotions and thoughts of our main characters in visual poetry. So without further ado, let’s all become arm-chair Freuds and take a peak into the surreal.

10. Agatha’s Vision (Minority Report, 2002)

Steven Spielberg’s attempt at imitating his dearly departed friend Stanley Kubrick with a futuristic thriller is well, at best, a mixed result. With a more focused script and better plotting this could have been Blade Runner for a new generation, instead it is an above average chase film with great effects and Tom Cruise doing what he does best, running for his life.

In Minority Report, a future exists where it is discovered three young people, aptly named Pre-Cogs, can see murders days in advance in their dreams. A new agency is then organized to interpret their dreams to prevent those crimes, Pre-Crime. Now, I could put down any one of the murder visions by said Pre-cogs, instead I’ll list the scene where the lead Pre-Cog, Agatha (played with great eeriness by Samantha Morton) describes what see sees being a home ‘full of warmth’. An alternate reality in which Anderton’s (Cruise) dead son never disappeared years ago. There is no visual sequence accompanying her description of this reality (there is no need, her narration convey’s everything needed) only the reactions of Anderton and his wife as they listen, tears in their eyes, to a future that should have been; watching their son grow into a man.

Agatha, up to this point had only been used to see violence and death, the absolute evil in people, but here removed from Pre-crime she can now see a brighter reality, with the promise of hope. She is able to convey this feeling beautifully to two people desperately needing to hear those things. It is a moment of genuine emotion (surprisingly missing in this Spielberg movie)  in a film that needed more grounding in it.

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