by Allan Fish
(Japan 1952 141m) DVD1/2
Swing low, sweet Kanji
d Akira Kurosawa w Hideo Oguni, Shinobu Hashimoto, Akira Kurosawa ph Asaichi Nakai ed Akira Kurosawa m Fumio Hayasaka art So Matsuyama
Takashi Shimura (Kanji Watanebe), Nobuo Kaneko (Mitsuo), Kyoko Seki (Kazue), Makoto Kobori (Kiiche),
Ikiru is probably Akira Kurosawa’s least typical film, the sort normally associated with Yasujiro Ozu. Yet this is not a film wrapped up in Japanese custom; Kurosawa’s western influences are well in evidence and it’s not Chishu Ryu playing the lead but Kurosawa’s own Takashi Shimura. Arguably Kurosawa’s greatest achievement, it allows its narrative to unfold slowly non-linearly, and doesn’t feel a jot too long at well over two hours.
Kanji Watanabe has worked in the same governmental department for thirty years without getting anything out of his job. He is ridiculed by his underlings, one of whom innocently enough nicknames him The Mummy, as he’s acted dead for twenty years. Then, after a routine check up at the doctor’s, he comes to realise he has stomach cancer and that he has well under a year to live. At first, he goes off with a bohemian author to get drunk, and then spends another day with a young girl in his office who has just resigned. But neither give his life meaning or satisfy him and, realising his son no longer has love or respect for him, he contemplates his life and its worthlessness and tries to make a difference in his last remaining months. He uses his job to obtain a plot of land and turns it into a playground with swings for children. Upon its completion, alone on his swing, he dies peacefully in the snow.
At its core there is nothing particularly remarkable about Ikiru, its basic plot ingredients being the stuff of little more than soap, but it’s the fragile nature of the central performance that makes you realise you’re witnessing greatness. Unlike that other great study of an old man nearing the end of his life, Umberto D, released the same year, our protagonist is not retired, he’s about to be terminated in a much crueller way. Ozu had made a career out of films showing the intricacies of family life and the short memories of children for their parents, but in the end this is about Kenji and no-one else. He feels his life is worthless without anything to show for it and, if all he can accomplish is to build a park for children and bypass the governmental bureaucracy (if only Capra’s Jefferson Smith had so much luck at Willet Crick), then so be it.
Ikiru is a film packed with memorable scenes; the opening shot of the hero’s deathly X-ray (“a man who does not know he’s dying of cancer“), Kenji murmuring a song in a bar, his taking his young female colleague home with him to the shock of his son and daughter-in-law, the waiting room misery guts warning him of impending doom (we’ve all met one), but it’s the dialogue that rings truest, with its simple mantras running through the film. “Children forget parents when they are brought up” Kenji is warned; “people appreciate life faced with death” his author friend tells him; “every day’s the same” says his young resigning colleague. It all adds up to one thing, that life should be more than slaving to the point where you stop living (which is what the word Ikiru means) and merely exist.
Kurosawa’s direction is so pitch-perfect it’s the definitive exhibit for the defence of anyone myopic enough to just dismiss him as a director of Samurai films. They may be his life’s blood, as it were, but that’s just like saying John Ford only made westerns. It’s looking at just one spoke to his wheel, not the whole frame. Yet the film would not work were it not for the subtle power of the central performance and Shimura is heartbreaking in the role without once asking for audience sympathy. It’s one of the greatest performances in world cinema and one of the greatest studies in the human spirit. Ikiru is a film to make you weep with both joy and despair; joy at being both so moved by the film and it’s central character, despair at his unavoidable fate and because, in seeing the reaction at his wake, no-one has ever understood and known him. And who amongst us can not say that that is not a very real fear?
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Easily my favorite Kurosawa so far. I was so moved by his singing, and the scene at the swing set. What a memorable performance.
And there it is. My No.1 of the 50’s (you will receive my top 25 very soon) and Kurosawa’s shining glory.
“It’s one of the greatest performances in world cinema and one of the greatest studies in the human spirit.”
Never a truer word, I generally feel like a greater human being after watching this film, even after the umpteenth time. I haven’t yet met a person who hasn’t fallen apart at watching Kanji, alone and peaceful, on that swing in the snow. Beautiful.
Great review Allan, as always.
Great to see the boundless enthusiasm here from Joseph and Ibetolis for this powerful and seminal film.
Ibetolis’s long running banner at Films of the Soul, his wonderful classic movie blogsite, has spoken for it for the longest time.
It’s Ibetolis’s altar.
I just watched “Ikuru” last night, and I can only say that I fully agree with everything Allan wrote about it. I recorded it a while back (nearly two years ago, I think) but could never face its depressing subject. Having now seen it, I can only say what a very moving experience it was–one of the most moving I’ve ever had with a movie–and that this is one of the most memorable pictures of all time.
Kurosawa is for me, based solely on the number of masterpieces he directed, in the holy trifecta of directors along with Bergman and Hitchcock. So to say that this is one of his very best is saying something indeed. To think that he produced two such dissimilar masterpieces as this and “The Seven Samurai” within a year or two of each other is astounding. Taken together, these two films show a directorial talent of unbelievable range. What aspect of life is not contained within those two movies?
Things that Allan mentioned that also struck me: it doesn’t feel as long as it really is, the “non-linear” stream-of-consciousness sections (at the beginning when Watanabe is at the shrine to his dead wife and we briefly get his backstory and at the end when his drunken colleagues remember him at his wake), his long encounters with the bohemian writer and the young girl, the generational differences, the “pitch-perfect” direction, the similarities to “Umberto D.” Above all, there is that performance by Shimura. To say that it is “one of the greatest” is almost an understatement. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a performance by a male actor this good. It’s as great as Anna Magnani was in “Open City”–for me probably the best performances by an actor and actress I’ve ever seen.
About the comparison to soap: The ingredients may be soapish, but as Allan wrote, they are not treated as soap. The movie is full of sentiment without ever really being sentimental. I can only imagine with a shudder what Capra or Ford would have done with this material. And there are similarities to the movies of both of those directors. The way the bureaucrats are treated made me think of Capra, while the use of the song reminded me of the way Ford used traditional tunes.
One last comment. The structure of the movie was brilliant and completely unexpected. I knew the general situation, yet I never expected the story to unfold the way it did, in sections, almost like the acts of a play, each with its own tone and intent–just brilliant screenwriting. The last section at the wake was almost Shakespearian. All the shifts of emotion among the characters during that section was amazing. From cynicism and denial of Watanabe’s efforts in getting the park made to drunken, sentimental near-deification of him. And in the end, all those bureaucrats who seemed so moved by his example reverted to their former ways–all except the one pictured in the final scene. Watanabe’s life was in the end not that of a great hero, but it did have a real effect on at least one person (not to mention the kiddies who play in the park) who perhaps would carry on the tradition of small, selfless acts that go largely unrecognized and unrewarded.
All in all, one of the greatest films by one of the greatest directors. And Allan did it full justice, as usual hitting all the salient points in the most concise way. Oh, and I’ll never forget Shimura’s face. It’s seared into my memory. Aside from his face, the most memorable single image: that one brief shot of the mechanical toy rabbit and his alarm clock together in a box. And that new hat, seen at the end crumpled and soiled. Enough already. Did I make it clear how much I like this move? Just kidding.
O. M. G.
R. D., this is truly a Hall of Fame comment, but it seems you have made it a regular occurance, and we are exceedingly fortuitous as a result.
That toy rabbit reference! Wow. Yes indeed. And you did make it resoundingly clear.
R.D. I would list Shimura’s performance among the greatest in the history of the cinema, in the top five, methinks. I definitely see the connection to UMBERTO D., that last section at the wake does come off as “Shakespearean” and the movie DEFINITELY is full of sentiment, but doesn’t come off as sentimental at all.
God, you say it ALL R.D., when marveling at the release of both SEVEN SAMURAI and IKIRU within two years, when you declare:
“What aspect of life is not contained within those two movies?
Indeed.
I am as stunned by this comment by R.D. Finch as I am by Allan’s review of this masterpiece.
Where are you, film lovers??
Get over here.
Finchy, old boy, you’ve surpassed yourself here, and you know that comes rarely from my pursed lips. Great stuff, and hard to disagree with any of it.
Well, maybe the best ever performances thing…I still say the best performances ever given were both in silents…Severin Mars in La Roue and Falconetti in Dreyer’s film I needn’t name, but Magnani and Shimura are both beyond superb.
Sam and Allan, thank you both very much. But I can’t take full credit. I was inebriated on the cinematic experience at the time; it was the movie speaking.