Kurosawa's Dreams & Neorealism?

Ran here:

I'm still thinking of Travis' question about Neorealism; and I hope I remember your question correctly--would it be proper to say we have found some Neorealist impulses in Kurosawa's Dreams, for instance in its first story? I want to briefly explain my ideas; hopefully in a better way. 

first of all, I won't suppose the title "Dreams"--something about fantasy and the imagined world--would totally exclude the possibility that film has realist elements. 

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Nevertheless, the first story on the little boy who witnesses the marriage of foxes has its origin from Japanese folklore --it is not something that would happen in the real daily life (either the marriage; or the little boy's encounter with them); the little boy (and the family) is from, obviously, some uncertain ancient time; and the setting is highly controlled, elaborate; costumes are exquisite, beautifully designed (you could offer other examples from the film as well); the story is also based on the very fascinating logic of the folklore; rather than some ordinary events in contemporary life(while it could have some implications for our modern life): we could hardly argue that it is Neorealist (for which I don't think location shooting is the only criteria though).

Some Neorealist films have "open ending"; but it is too simplistic to say any film that has open ending would be Neorealist.  Lots of Hollywood films seem to have open endings as well...

However, I find this question interesting and needs to be discussed because in the Bordwell reading, we have also read about the postwar European modernist cinema--actually we might want to say Kurosawa's films could be related to such a strand of modernism (please refer to the Bordwell reading); at the same time, we want to argue a large number of films from the New Wave movements tend to be wonderful works of Art Cinema (some Neorealist films share some characteristics with Art films)--another concept that we could study in the following sessions. And Korosawa's epic works such as Ran and Seven Samurai --and also Dreams--have now been considered classics of Art Cinema. 


Thanks for Travis' question; I think it also helps me to think about Neorealist films better.