Reviewed by Paul Christian Glenn
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Release: 1952
Rating: N/A
So I’ve been on this Kurosawa kick recently, and this weekend’s rental was Ikiru, a film Kurosawa made in 1952, between The Idiot (his interpretation of Dostoevsky) and The Seven Samurai, which would bring him international fame (and later be remade in the U.S. as The Magnificent Seven, starring Yul Brynner). The version of Ikiru I watched is the much-lauded Criterion restoration.
I’m not going to try to say a bunch of insightful things about Ikiru (translated: “to live”). Minds far more insightful than my own have already written much about the film, its themes, and its place in cinematic history. I will say, however, that this is a beautiful film that got everything right. It moved me, it challenged me, and it inspired me. It caused me to consider the way in which I live. It made me laugh, and it made me hope for magic in my life - if even the little, everyday kind.
The story is about Watanabe (Takashi Shimura), an elderly gent who has been serving in the Department of Civil Affairs for years beyond remembrance. He is an upright fellow, a model employee, and respected among his peers. One day, Watanabe learns he has inoperable cancer, and not long to live. The doctor has a peculiar and infuriating way of refusing to say the damning words, but his verdict is very clear. Watanabe is devastated.
In a shocked daze, Watanabe wanders the streets, examining the pieces of his life. There is the extreme, enveloping loneliness that he cannot seem to escape, the long-suppressed yearning for something extraordinary to happen to him, and the sudden, bitter regret for the way he’s spent his life. There are memories of his son, his wife, his family. All are gone now, either physically or emotionally, and Watanabe is left to bear his burden quietly.
One inspired extended sequence follows Watanabe and a self-described “second-rate novelist” who is determined to show the old man a wild night on the town. Watanabe spills his secret to this stranger, and the novelist first sympathizes, then waxes philosophical about Watanabe’s terminal condition. He concludes that Watanabe deserves to live it up for one long night, to experience everything in life that ever passed him by. The conclusion to this sequence is unexpected, poignant, and inevitable.
The story doesn’t end where you think it might, and Kurosawa employs a number of devices that western directors would eschew, like providing us with a third-party omniscient narrator, or telling the story in segmented episodes that play almost as individual pieces. There is a definite through-line to the story, but Kurosawa’s not particularly compelled to keep us there. And just when a more typical film would start yanking on our heartstrings,
Kurosawa neatly sidesteps the melodrama and moves into a more thoughtful and objective closing act.
Kurosawa’s camera has become familiar to me now after only four films. His style is distinctive, and his composition is second-to-none. Though this is a small and intimate film, there are moments of visual brilliance here that foreshadow the rapturous cinematic sweep of his late masterwork, Ran.
Shimura delivers a powerful lead performance, portraying a man who has so long been numb to the world around him that he hardly knows how to grieve, or laugh, or sing. Watching him slowly come to life again is one of the film’s many pleasures, like watching one of those time-lapse films of little green buds that blossom into
flowers, then fade all too soon.
I’ve yet to see a Kurosawa film that I dislike. I wasn’t blown away by The Hidden Fortress, but it was enjoyable. Ran and Throne of Blood are both brilliant. But I think Ikiru may be my favorite so far.