IKIRU - May Film Fest

If you've never heard of the film IKIRU - well, that makes two of us.  And it is among the many great blessings that have come my way thanks to my spur-of-the-moment May Film Fest.

Instead of struggling to say what about this remarkable gem is so unforgettable, am abdicating that responsibility to Ernest Jagger, who wrote the following 5-star review back on 08/09/05 on Amazon:

This is a humble film with the soul of an angel. It isn't about a life so much as it is about the act of living. This film, in its quiet way, asks us to ponder what makes life meaningful. And it argues that our pursuit of life's quantity is misplaced, because it leads to neglect of life's quality.
 

It tells the story of a dying man's last days. Kanji Watanabe is a lifelong cog in a vast bureaucratic machine who has wasted his entire life shuffling papers. He is played by Takashi Shimura in one of the finest understated performances ever committed to film. Shot in black and white, it is melancholic, bleak and subdued. Likely, Kurosawa chose to film in black and white to reflect the starkness of the protagonist's last days; the way the world looks through dying eyes; and it works.

 

 

 

It is the mark of Kurosawa's genius how the story and the character sneak up on us. At first, Mr. Watanabe seems an uninspiring study, hardly worthy of our sympathy. A small meek fragile man, he almost stoops under the weight of his own life. He learns of his illness in a well-known opening scene that combines pathos with cruel irony, and before we know it, we start to care about this little man who life treads so callously underfoot. What at first looks like lack of courage reveals itself to be lack of motivation. What we take to be a spineless career of dull conformity turns out to be a sacrifice made for the sake of an unappreciative son. 

This film has layers and subtlety and visual poetry presented with understatement, finesse and restraint: a wonderful combination that shows the deepest respect for the intelligence of the audience.

 

 

 

The moral turning point in the story is reached when Mr Watanabe determines to accomplish one worthwhile achievement before his life ends. We don't realize how involved we have become in this little man's life until we find ourselves mentally urging him onward to overcome every bureaucratic obstacle he encounters. Not so long ago, with the prospect of a long life still stretched out before him, he was one of the very bureaucrats whose job it was to obstruct and confound just such aspirations. Now, with barely months to live, he makes it his duty to champion them. This turn of events is one of the most touching acts of redemption in all of cinema. By making amends for an unworthy past, an ordinary everyman finds life's meaning in his very last act of living.
 

I have watched hundreds of films since Ikiru, but there are scenes from this film that have burned themselves into my heart and are as clear today as the moment I first saw them. This occurs not because the director achieved an especially vivid special effect, but because of how deeply we come to care for our little hero. The famous scene at the end is one of the most dignified and gracious artistic statements ever filmed, yet it is a scene of wounding simplicity: a perfect epitaph to a cinematic elegy.

 

 

Kurosawa was one of the greatest of all filmmakers and this was his best and most personal film. It's a crime that his work is known only among the literati of the film world, and not to a wider audience. I cannot promise you that you will like this film, because it is paced with a measured and quiet deliberation that is utterly foreign to those raised on a western diet of car crashes, yammering idiots and pixie dust. 

 

You need patience, introspection and empathy to appreciate this gentle masterpiece, but if you are the kind of person who is moved by pity, tenderness, humility and grace, then I envy you your first viewing of this ode to the human spirit.