I was fortunate to see Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru on the big screen. In a dark theatre there are no distractions, no pauses, nor is there any sense of time. The isolation of a blackened room forces even the least sentimental to reflect. With my beloved, I reminisced in silence on our trip back home via my favourite bus route. The passing trees and old bungalow homes are weathered, rife with life of their own. I really must start living someday, they remind me. One day.
Our protagonist is Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura), a bored and lonely bureaucrat. Behind piles of stamped and unstamped documents, he waits for his sand to run out before the paperwork does. A narrator informs the audience that Kanji has yet to ever live. And to make matters worse, in recent days his stomach has developed severe pain. This is where our story begins.
In the doctor’s office waiting room, Kanji is diagnosed with gastric cancer by an observant patient. He is told if the doctors should lie and deem his pain only a mild stomach ulcer with no necessary operations, he has no more than a year to live.
In the doctor’s office, Kanji is diagnosed with a phony mild stomach ulcer. Kanji is now aware he will live no longer than a year.
In search of meaning to his monotonous routine, Kanji looks first to hedonism, reinvigorated by the freedom of leaving his job. In bars and bottles of sake, he searches for small adventures around the city to replenish a wasted past. In partnership with Toyo (Miki Odagiri), a bubbly young woman and colleague, Kanji extracts as much indulgence as he can out of the material world until it depletes.
“Ikiru” translates from Japanese as “to live”—a direct spoiler of what our protagonist’s prophecy hopes to fulfill. The ego may thrive off pleasure, but a life well-lived does not. Ikiru is rich in these small wisdoms—reminders of the bare necessities of a human spirit.
In a sudden burst to affect change in his small world, Kanji rallies with a mob of women proposing to build a park. This is now his life’s mission, and in turn his legacy.
Ikiru plays as a parable, exposing a lesson in life and death to the modest audience among my viewing. Now, death is no longer a fear in the eyes of a lived man.
As a narrator’s timeline professed, Kanji plays himself out in song. To the very last beat of his heart, he sings: “Life is brief, fall in love, maidens, before the crimson bloom, fades from your lips, before the tides of passion cool within you, for there is no such thing as tomorrow, after all.”
4/5