Ikiru

89 "I can't afford to hate people." Ikiru by none other than Akira Kurosawa is beautiful and inspiring. The tagline rings true: Kanji Watanabe's story will grip your soul. For me, Ikiru was less about finding the meaning of life, but more about the recklessness and pity of bureaucratic department officials that you can even notice in the modern world today which makes the film all more relevant and interesting to watch. In my opinion, this theme is the main conflict because we keep coming back to it and it is what ties the whole movie together. For example, the scene at the hospital: the doctor knows Kanji has cancer, but just like the department officials, he brushes it off. The film's problems that it tackles are widespread and global so I would like to point out another main idea of Ikiru which is about the lack of power of regular people to stop this devastating system and this is shown at the end when a single worker obviously had the urge to protest, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Akira Kurosawa's noh story structure is very evident in Ikiru. The slow introduction to the main character and his principles, the news that he has cancer, the idea of building a park or his death serving as the climax, and finally his funeral, during which the workers reflect on their jobs and principles. The fact that the screenplay and the script are both exceptionally written and unique is undeniable. However, I thought the pace was not amazing with the Novelist's sequence being a touch drawn out. As well as Watanabe's realization, or the urge to do something, or this switch in character was a bit vague. Like I said earlier, Ikiru's main conflict is the flaw of the bureaucratic system which might be the reason the film does not disclose all the details immediately on Kanji's actual park-building motive. Instead, we learn with the workers and fight their ideas. Takashi Shimura is great. He translates Kanji Watanabe's personality through subtle clues such as his walk, head-down sitting position, or voice very well. Overall, I believe Ikiru is about the brevity of a human life. This is even underlined in the title of the film: "Ikiru" or "To live". Moreover, Kanji sings a song called "Life is brief" in the movie. Thus, the brevity of human life is revealed through the meaningless pastime at bureaucratic positions, death, meaning of life. Ikiru works on your subconscious and has a long-lasting effect on you. If we are looking at Kurosawa's filmography, I personally thought High and Low (1963) was better, but Ikiru was definitely very good too. Incredible use of blocking by Akira Kurosawa as always.