Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru, which means "to live," is a tender portrait of an aging bureaucrat (Shimura) who's wasted 30 years of his life, discovers he has cancer, and fights to reclaim meaning and relevance before he dies. Through the eyes of his coworkers and family, we see a man who has lost his excitement for life attempt to find it again--in alcohol, strip clubs, and young women--but cannot. Instead his search leads him ultimately to redemption through his job in the government, where he makes up his mind to get a park built for a local community. His achievement doesn't improve the government's inefficiency, his death doesn't change most of his coworkers' opinions of him, but for a select few, he has made a world of difference.The structure of the film is unique, because the last hour or so takes place after his death. And this is where the film is truly elevated out of the melodramatic sentimentality modern-day Hollywood would have turned it into. At his wake we finally get to see what people really think of him, without his feelings and the possibility of hurting them to get in the way. We are frustrated at everyone who doesn't understand what he was doing, we are infuriated at them for trying to cheat him out of his accomplishment, and we want to yell at the screen: "THIS IS A GOOD MAN WHO DIED! RESPECT HIM!" But Kurosawa's brilliant directing controls it all. Our final image of the man is one of serenity, a smile on his face as he swings back and forth in the park he managed to build for people who needed it. He doesn't care about the credit; he just knows he did a good deed and can die peacefully.
The entire story is told in evocative shot compositions and Shimura's expressive face. We see a paper on improving government efficiency that he wrote 20 years prior, and we see him tear off its cover page to use as a tissue before throwing it away. Does he even remember writing that? In the waiting room at the doctor's office, he listens as a man describes the symptoms of stomach cancer and callously correlates them to life expectancy. His horror mangles his face. When he comes home to tell his son he's going to die, he overhears him greedily talking about his pension and loses the heart to tell him. Through a few quick flashbacks we see a father full of joy, pride, shame, and guilt, but unable to change how his son looks at him.
Ikiru is a slow-paced and often silent film, which demands patience of its audience for the 2 hour and 20 minute runtime. And it is a sad story for most of its length--but it ends with one of the most poignant, uplifting finales I have ever seen. Could it have stood to be edited a bit tighter? Yes. Could some short vignettes have been cut? Of course. But the picture overcomes its minor drawbacks and envelops you; it enriches your life. And after you see this movie, you might be one of the coworkers who doesn't much change, but you also might be the one who sees the whole world with new eyes.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044741/
