Ikiru
1952 ‘生きる’ Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Synopsis
Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.
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From what I've seen, there isn't much talk of how surreal Ikiru can get.
At least two metaphorical men visit poor Watanabe within the first half: the ulcer man and the good Mephistopheles. The ulcer man himself is but a parallel to another man currently coughing near Watanabe at the local hospital; it's as if the spirit of approaching death knows what too will happen to the protagonist. This reflection of death comes to Shimura's character in the same way that Watanabe goes to find the underworld journalist for moral support. Neither apparitions give him anything of use—only his awkward relationship with Toyo can give him the conviction and liveliness necessary to confront erasure with any assurance. In a world…
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Up until today I had only really seen the samurai side of Kurosawa and had I not been aware of the acclaim Ikiru has received over the past 60 years I would never have thought he could pull off something quite like this. Set in post-WWII Japan, we are told the story of a middle-aged workaholic who lives with his only son and daughter-in-law. Upon hearing the news that he has cancer and roughly six months to live the whole world comes crushing down around him and he realizes that he never really lived life to its fullest, having spent the past thirty years in a state of mundane everyday life. An existential drama is the last thing you'd expect…
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Kurosawa never ceases to amaze me. From Samurai, to drama, to this touching and heartfelt masterpiece, he could truly do it all and Ikiru is right up there with the very best of his work.
Even though most of us don't have life threatening diseases, I'm sure a lot of us can still relate to the themes behind the movie. Wake up, go to work, come home, sleep. That's my daily routine and will be for the next 40-50 years. After watching Ikiru I just want to shout 'fuck it' and do whatever I want, but I can't and that really, really sucks.
Ikiru tells the story of an aging office worker Kanji Watanabe who has been stuck in the…
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Perfection. I don't even know where to begin to discuss it. I spent the entire last hour of the film in tears.
I'll watch it again before long with commentary and special features, and maybe I will be able to sort myself out and write something proper.
I can tell you this: That copy of Chalet Girl that I watched 20 minutes of last night and decided to finish today because I was tired is going back to the library unfinished. I have already worked out the entire plot of the movie anyway. How could I begin to watch that predictable, tacky crap when something like IKIRU exists?
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My Death class wanted us to watch a movie relating to death and so seeing this movie in every article I found I decided to watch this tonight. It's been a while since I've seen some of the other Kurosawa films but this one might be my favorite. An incredibly inspiring tale of a man who wasted away until he realized he couldn't waste away any longer. The fear of death turned his life around.
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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Rarely have I felt so moved watching a scene as I did with Watanabe sitting on that swing in the snow, gazing across the playground. Absolutely brilliant.
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Definitely my favorite of Kurosawa's non-samurai offerings.
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Kurosawa's most sentimental film that I have watched so far, Ikiru most reminded me of A Christmas Carol, as Kanji met with various people who show him there is more to life, and helped him out of his stupor.
Takashi Shimura is wonderful and the film has some beautiful scenes, the swing near the end in particular.
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The opening narration bothered me a bit. It goes beyond being heavy handed and unnecessary to actually be reductive. It belabours the point about how Wantanabe, who is about to learn that he has terminal cancer, is a humourless paper-pushing bureaucrat who has never actually been living anyway. This essentially sets up Ikiru to be a redemption story, but soon we learn that Wantanabe lost his wife twenty years earlier and has basically been toiling away at City Hall to provide his son with the best possible life. Is the point that Wantanabe, in being rendered a ghost of a man by this tragic loss, is therefore perfectly suited to the life of a bureaucrat? The film's rather repulsive villain…
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The Good: Brilliant story and message. Incredible cinematography. Charming performance from Miki Odagiri.
The Bad: Slow; drags quite a bit. Uneven. Messy. Heavy-handed. Outdated acting, especially from lead actor Takashi Shimura.
The Bottom Line: I really like what this film has to say. I just wish it was executed much better. Worth seeing at least once.
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"We only realise how beautiful life is when we chance upon death."
He works monotonously and indifferently behind a desk at the office. He lacks any connection with his co-workers or his family, and his face tells us he has no intention of establishing one. He wakes up, he goes to work, stamps a few documents, goes home, sleeps, and repeats the process. As the movie tells us, at this point, he is not alive - and he hasn't been alive for a very long time. He has simply been marking time. But, he finds out he has stomach cancer. Miserable and hopelessly speeding towards death, he lies in his room sobbing. We see lining his room numerous tokens of…
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Kurosawa never ceases to amaze me. From Samurai, to drama, to this touching and heartfelt masterpiece, he could truly do it all and Ikiru is right up there with the very best of his work.
Even though most of us don't have life threatening diseases, I'm sure a lot of us can still relate to the themes behind the movie. Wake up, go to work, come home, sleep. That's my daily routine and will be for the next 40-50 years. After watching Ikiru I just want to shout 'fuck it' and do whatever I want, but I can't and that really, really sucks.
Ikiru tells the story of an aging office worker Kanji Watanabe who has been stuck in the…
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placeholder for a review of the best example of the first world human experience ever depicted on film
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ObVintageActingSnark: Yes, it's still a problem for me. And Takashi Shimura does a lot of bug-eyed staring, plus I'm not really sure that a protagonist learning he's going to die should feel like a spit-take. Now that that's out of the way: WOW. As heartbreaking as Watanabe's journey of self-discovery is, including memorable images like the ocean of pressed-together humanity at the night club, the second act at the wake is even more of a gut-punch. This is what it looks like when people try to understand Watanabe's attempt to leave behind something of significance, and ultimately find themselves too paralyzed by protecting mundane normalcy to learn anything from his experience. It's like a version of It's a Wonderful Life that ends by stabbing you in the soul.