Inspired to write music after hearing the French song "Parlez-Moi d'Amour" during World War II, film composer Toru Takemitsu enjoyed a rich career working with many of Japanese cinema's greatest directors. Rarely interviewed filmmakers such as Hiroshi Teshigahara (Woman in the Dunes) and Masaki Kobayashi (Kaidan) expound on the varied sonic palettes Takemitsu left upon their works.

Chris Marker's elliptical, oblique documentary on the making of Akira Kurosawa's "Ran" is an uneasy blend of hagiography (usual Cahiers du Cinema stuff) and Marker's trademark meditations on the mediating role of technology in memory and the human experience, plus probably aging, and etc., etc., etc. These Gallicisms seem out-of-place; but the philosophies are easily discarded. What makes the film a pleasure are the glimpses we see of Kurosawa's work processes, in addition to all the detail and work that goes into the making of a true epic.