Ikiru

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This great film by Kurosawa is probably less well known than his Samurai tales, but is none the worse for that. The film is both long and slow-paced, but the impact is incredible. We begin with 'our hero' (as Kurosawa calls him) Watanabe's stomach x-ray, and we are told that he has cancer. We then see Watanabe sitting at his desk in the Tokyo city civil service, slowly marking a great pile of papers with his little rubber stamp. He sits at the head of a group of people doing much the same thing, shuffling papers from one place to another, and we are told that he has been doing this for 30 years! We see a group of ladies complaining about stagnant water directed from one office to another as the bureaucratic machinery churns mechanically onwards. Against this background, Watanabe goes to the doctor with his stomach complaint. He meets a strange man who precisely describes Watanabe's symptoms, and tells him that the doctors will lie to him, as the disease is terminal. This comes true and Watanabe realises that he is to die soon. The stunning waste of his life then becomes apparent to him, and in a really powerful scene he falls asleep, crying below a commendation from the office for 25 years of service. He isn't worried by dying, rather he's worried by never having lived. He stops going to work, he buys expensive sake and goes to the bright lights, but this fails to make him happy. He then spends time with a young girl from the office, and it is on an evening out with her that he realises what he must do. This realisation is combined with a roomful of people singing 'Happy Birthday' for a friend...but it is clear that they are singing for Watanabe's rebirth. Watanabe goes back to the office and picks up the file concerning the stagnant water...he is determined to do something about it after 30 years of doing nothing! The next section of the film is the real key to its impact. We are at Watanabe's funeral, with a number of the technocrats from the City Council. My expectation was that they would all be complimenting the memory of Watanabe and his achievement in clearing the stagnant water and building a park in record time...but they aren't! I was frustrated...I wanted them to recognise that he knew he was ill, and fought the established order so as to achieve something with his life. As they drink more and more, they begin to reflect on what Watanabe had achieved. They become emotional, realising that he knew he was ill, and realising that with determination, the system can be used to achieve things. The final scene, however, is of one of the men present at the funeral subsiding below a pile of papers, unable to change anything. The bitter ending is tempered by the powerful feelings stimulated by Kurosawa during the funeral scene. I reached the end feeling that one man can make a difference if he is determined, and that this can only be achieved by reflecting on your life and achievements, and then making a conscious decision to do something!

A dying man tries to seize what's left of his life. The pacing is lethargic throughout, but the film practically comes to a halt during the wake scene of the last hour. After the central character dies, it drags on for nearly an hour. As is usually the case with Kurosawa, he has his cast engage in theatrical acting. Perpetually wide-eyed and depressed, Shimura mumbles his lines while barely opening his mouth or moving his lips. It's a one-dimensional performance that saps the film of whatever potential it had. On the other hand, Odagiri is charming as a young lady who's everything Shimura is not: good-humored and spirited, enjoying life to the fullest.

Ikuri (To Live) currently stands as the 124th highest rated movie on IMDB, and though I respect the accomplishment of getting onto that list I have to say the films are very often not to my taste. The film tells the story of a bureaucrat who learns that he has an incurable stomach cancer and has between 6 months to a year to live. He's spent 30 years in the same boring job and is faced with his mortality and the question of whether he has wasted his life. What would you do if you knew you had months to live? That is the challenge facing our protagonist and it makes for a bleak, yet oddly uplifting human tale. Being Toho I expected it to be well made, it was. Being an Akira Kurosawa film I expected it to be dark, it was. And being that it starred Takashi Shimura I expected it to be well acted, I can confidently say this is a career best. The multi award winning epic certainly deserves it's accolades, Takashi is amazing. On the flipside I think some of the writing is underpar and the films construction is head scratching in places. Despite this however the film is riddled with fantastic messages of both hope and despair and coveys them perfectly. Not the easiest of viewing but regardless still a fantastic piece of Japanese cinema. The Good: Incredible performance by Takashi Shimura Excellent underlining messages The Bad: Poorly constructed in places Things I Learnt From This Movie: I can't figure out how businesses got patrons before the smoking ban

Oh what a curse to be a genius! Here we have a nearly perfect film, perfect in all the ordinarily engineered respects. It is rather haunting, and if you choose to watch it you will find it memorable. But Kurosawa is not merely a maker of well engineered films, together with perhaps a hundred others. No, he is an inventor, someone who imagines new ways of dreaming. He invents vision. So when we have a film that is merely excellent but inventive, we are saddened. Missing here is the deep layering, usually three deep with different movement. Missing is the explosive turn. Missing is the grand scope, connecting in selfaware fashion to powers beyond a mere human. We do have some complex storytelling: the last third is a matter of discussion and argument among the surviving bureaucrats about what happened in the fashion of "12 Angry Men." But it centers on the humanity, indeed the worth a life. Small stuff for normal Kurasawa adventures. You may want to see this if you are a casual watcher. Or if you are serious and want to see all this master's films. But otherwise, I'll steer you away from it. It is merely strong and compelling, not lifealtering. Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Can't say I agree with critical acclaim for Ikiru, all critics seem to be in perfect unison that it's a masterpiece. Perhaps, but also a very tedious one. Yes I can appreciate the message about finding your meaning of life and making a difference etc but a film having a serious message doesn't mean it has to drag; Ikiru was very slow and rather long as well. Not a good combination. What cheered up the film a bit was the female lead, the girl from the office... Ikiru, imo, has only one great scene; The girl showing her emotions at the restaurant, her sheer disgust/pity was quite fascinating to watch. Other than that it was the sad puppy face and slumped shoulders of the protagonist for almost couple hours which sure is memorable but also one note acting. The wake scene, which consisted of almost last hour of the film, was some sort of critical social commentary on Japanese culture, way of thinking and bureaucracy - but also rather poor storytelling since it was hard for the viewer to relate to arguments by characters that had not really been introduced properly earlier in the film. More emotionally effective would have been to actually witness the protagonist perform his life altering bureaucratic heroics himself. Well, to be fair, Kurosawa actually did show some of it using flashbacks...It seems that Kurosawa has a * for flashbacks, as seen in "Rashomon" as well. Yet those scenes in Ikiru were pretty much protagonist merely nodding and begging in apologetic manner. I found that less than convincing way to get the job done... or to achieve a legacy for that matter. Oh well, at least they played Pachinko and visited a strip tease show. But couple breaks from tedium and the life altering philosophy just couldn't save the film from its slow pace, predictability and dare I say rather mediocre cinematography. I'll give it 5/10.

Looking back at Akira Kurosawa's impressive fifty-year career in filmmaking, it's impossible to determine which film was his best. Fans of the late Japanese legend might cite The Seven Samurai or The Hidden Fortress, while critics believe that it should be Rashomon or Ran. A growing band of Kurosawa worshippers has recently named Ikiru as his indisputable masterpiece. Unfortunately, I don't see myself joining the latter soon. Yes, Ikiru is Kurosawa's most deepest and reflective film, though in my opinion it's far from the masterpiece that it's touted to be. Ikiru is a film best described as 'a game of two halves'. The first hour is vintage Kurosawa. It starts out with an X-ray image of a stomach diagnosed with cancer, and then introduces the film's pitiful lead character Kanji (Takashi Shimura) to the viewers. Kanji is a government official who has been loyally serving his department for many decades. Upon receiving news that he's suffering from terminal cancer, he decides to take an extended break from work (which he has never done before) to reflect about his life. After some inner soul searching, Kanji realized that he has been missing out on life since he began working. He sets himself on a quest to live out his final months with a motto, "I cannot die until I'm satisfied with my life". Cancer has taught people that life cannot be taken for granted. Kanji is a character that we can all relate to, from his humble personality to his simple outlook on life. Kurosawa cajoled out a magnificent performance from Shimura, not only was Shimura able to make us feel sympathetic toward his character, but his character was also able to earn our admiration by the end of the picture. However, Kurosawa is no Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story, Late Spring). Those familiar with the works of these two Japanese legends will know that Ikiru is the kind of story that Ozu would have relished. Kurosawa is simply not as capable in handling intense dramatic material as Ozu. This is perhaps the reason the second hour of the film fails to capture the greatness of the first. Kurosawa focused too much on the bureaucratic aspects and its faceless officials during the long funeral sequence than Kanji's final farewell gift to the community after an immense struggle involving politics and red tape. Ikiru's lackluster second half dilutes the film's emotional value. Kurosawa did not have an off day; it's just that he was too ambitious to have attempted such a complex urban drama, though his ambitions have often led him to more successes than failures in life. GRADE: B- (www.filmnomenon.blogspot.com) All rights reserved.

Being one of the Founding Fathers of Cinema, Kurosawa shines to all directions. In his diverse oeuvre it is hard, if not impossible, to find a weak work. Ikiru is the most humane film of this grand Humanist. Kurosawa's story telling skills are sublime, and he has surpassed himself with this movie. The slow pace and ditto camera movements (except in the night with 'Mephistofeles' where all is logically much more frantic) enhances the story superbly. What a pity some of the nowadays public can't find the tranquility and maybe serenity to watch a gorgeous film like that. That part of the movie lovers will miss a brilliant film, that would have lingered in the mind forever...