Something Like a Filmography: Ikiru (1952)

Something Like a Filmography takes a (brief) look at the filmography of Akira Kurosawa. Twice a month, Chris and Jon share their impressions of each film, both on its own terms and in terms of Kurosawa’s legacy and its intersection in the Cinema Dual hosts’ lives.

---

FROM THE BOX: One of the greatest achievements by Akira Kurosawa, Ikiru shows the director at his most compassionate—affirming life through an explora­tion of death. Takashi Shimura beautifully portrays Kanji Watanabe, an aging bureaucrat with stomach cancer who is impelled to find meaning in his final days. Presented in a radically conceived two-­part structure and shot with a perceptive, humanistic clarity of vision, Ikiru is a multifaceted look at what it means to be alive.

WHAT CHRIS THOUGHT: If Seven Samurai captured my young man’s spirit, Ikiru captured my old man’s heart. Besides Kurosawa at the helm, the common factor between the two that drove both films for me is Takashi Shimura, long my favorite actor in the director’s stable of actors (sorry, Mifune!). I don’t know that a face has been created before or since that can project such sadness, such a look of resignation. He’s more than capable of driving the entire film, with Kurosawa working again in grand melodramatic mode after the failure of The Idiot. Where that film fails by being so large in plot-scope, this film succeeds by bringing everything in, focusing on one man’s search for meaning, for what it means “to live” (the translation of the title) in the face of impending death.

On a technical level the film continues to have moments of astonishment, whether it’s the bravura opening sequence as the angry mob of mothers are shuttled from department to department as they fight to get a cesspool removed in favor of a children’s playground or how the camera of cinematographer Asakazu Nakai glides into these gorgeous close-ups, usually up to Shimura’s face. There’s a lot of depth used through the film as well, with Kurosawa often using screens, fences, window panes and other people to layer the action in the frame and bring more dramatic heft to each scene. All that technical brilliance serves the story, and one of the biggest compliments I can give to Ikiru is that I constantly struggle to focus on the technical aspects because they keep drawing me into Watanabe’s plight.

WHAT JON THOUGHT: The first time that Chris and I ever spoke about movies for a podcast, it was about Kurosawa and Ikiru. I’ve rewatched Ikiru a handful of times since then, and the lingering moments of that movie, in my mind and in that first conversation, are on the personal story of the transformation of Takashi Shimura’s Watanabe in the face of his imminent death. The final sequence of Watanabe on the snow-covered swing, after jettisoning all of the previous things that gave his life meaning and having rededicated what time he has left to helping others, is one of cinema’s best.

I was reminded on this rewatch, however, of how the entire second half of the movie is dedicated to placing Watanabe’s individual achievement in the bleak context of the larger bureaucracy, which will not be defeated so easily. The initial discussions of his colleagues at the funeral to immediately discredit Watanabe’s efforts are undermined by the group of mothers who had lobbied Watanabe for the park in the first place, and their palpable grief immediately exposes their disingenuousness. One might hope that Watanabe could eventually serve as an example for others to do better by the public they’re paid to serve, and as the bureaucrats further ponder what may have caused Watanabe to change, gestures are made in this direction. Kurosawa repeats the departmental runaround sequence from the beginning, only this time as a tragedy and not as a farce. The park, the one achievement of the film’s plot, is Watanabe’s alone.

ANYTHING ELSE, CHRIS? More random thoughts…I really wish Kurosawa had done a full-blown musical: I think that every time I get to the nightclub sequence, which should be a jarring disconnect from the rest of the film but feels so perfectly integrated into the overall story…I also love that, like The Idiot, Kurosawa refuses to pull any punches, and the last line of Jon’s initial thoughts about film coming full circle and how it looks as if nothing has changed despite Watanabe’s personal triumph is beautifully put. It never lets its social criticism fall to the wayside, and serves to emphasize just how important the fight is; even if nothing else changes, Watanabe’s achievement means everything to him, as we see in the what is possibly one of the finest moments ever committed to film: Shimura on that swing in the snow, gently singing “Gondola no Uta”, taking on a new life from when it was first introduced in the nightclub.

ANYTHING ELSE, JON? It’s interesting to watch this again in the context of Kurosawa’s filmography to date to see how it pulls elements from his other works. The previously discussed 2nd half with the bureaucrats trying to surmise what happened to Watanabe recalls the limited perspectives made so famous in Rashomon. But I truly think that the Kurosawa movie this builds on is The Idiot. Kurosawa is still on his Russian literature kick about human nature while being more liberal with the plot. Instead of a commentary title card, a narrator introduces the explicit theme of the movie up front. And the shots of the snowy city, one of my favourite visual elements of The Idiot, get saved for the film’s iconic park scene.

Finally, it would be criminal to write about Ikiru without acknowledging Takashi Shimura’s masterful performance. We’ve already seen him play wiser (in Stray Dog) and less wiser (in Scandal and Rashomon) characters in this series so far, but Ikiru entirely hangs on Shimura’s ability to move the audience, with mostly just his face, through every emotional shade of Watanabe’s final journey.

THE FINAL WORD(S): For Chris, Ikiru is Kurosawa at his best, using all his powers to tell the most personal of stories with the most universal of themes. He also 100% agrees with Jon, who thinks Ikiru might be Kurosawa’s most profound statement on humanity, in part because of how it manages to avoid being overly sentimental.

NEXT TIME: This is it, folks. All guns blazing, or more accurately, all swords raised. We’re doing Seven Samurai, and with any luck it’ll come out on time. If not, it’s because Chris is on vacation and we needed more time. Who knows? It’s SEVEN FRICKIN’ SAMURAI!