Ikiru

Mortality is something everyone must face many points in life. Kurosawa expresses how this looks in people in a raw, vulnerable way that leaves me with a connection to him across time and space. There’s a profound understanding of life and humans he has. I cried once in the film, built up over the film watching Watanabe experience the ways everyone around him chooses to live. I felt humiliated hearing him discuss his regrets and confusion. I felt ashamed when he couldn’t open up to people about his condition. I cried with joy seeing his final moments. I felt anger at a deep part of myself seeing how his peers felt moved, but not changed, by his life. There isn’t a simple message I hope to gain with this. I just want to recall this movie often, and hope it helps guide me in the right direction.