Ikiru

Poignant, thought-provoking and ultimately deeply moving, this 1952 vehicle was partly inspired Leo Tolstoy’s ‘The Death of Ivan Ilych’ and stars Takashi Shimura in the role of a downtrodden civil servant who is diagnosed with terminal cancer and suddenly realises that up until now, he merely existed but never actually lived thanks to his humdrum life.

Takashi Shimura, one of Kurosawa’s favourite actors who starred in 21 of the director’s films, plays Kanji Watanabe, an employee who has worked for Tokyo’s public works department for thirty years and to make things worse, he’s worked in the same bureaucratic position which is dull beyond belief. Alas, with his wife dead and his son Mitsuo (Nobuo Kaneko) and his stepdaughter both living in his house, there’s not much to look forward too after work, seeing how he and Mitsuo don’t exactly see eye to eye. More to the point, Mitsuo and his wife Kazue (Seki Kyoko) already make plans to claim both the old man’s estate and lifetime pension once he passes – after all, Watanabe is close to retirement age and really, for how much longer will he be around anyway? Precisely that is what the film is all about, because when Watanabe has a medical check-up due to his increasing stomach troubles, the X-ray depicts a malignant tumour. When he goes to the hospital to discuss the results with his doctor, he encounters another patient in the waiting room who reveals to a nervous Watanabe that he suffers from stomach cancer, before proceeding to mention the unpleasant telltale symptoms. Realising that these symptoms are the same as his own, he’s convinced that he too has stomach cancer but when he discusses the results with his doctor, he is surprised when he is told that “there’s nothing to worry about” as it’s merely an ulcer and he is prescribed a special medication for it. Deep down, Watanabe knows that the doctor is lying to him (as he indeed he is) which is odd, as nowadays surely such lies would no longer be allowed. Both doctor and nurses even go to great lengths to hide the X-ray photo from him and after he leaves the room, the doctor reveals to the nurse that the patient in question has about six months left to live at most…

What the doctor tried to hide from Watanabe doesn’t actually matter because the poor man simply knows that soon, his time will be up and this realisation triggers something in him which he had never experienced before: he begins to question his entire existence and it’s meaning, followed by flashback sequences including the funeral of his beloved wife and his then little son Mitsuo not understanding what was actually going on. With no social life and no hobbies, his entire existence seems to revolve around his unbelievably boring bureaucratic work – a cog in a chain comprised of other civil servants whose inaction infuriates a group of parents who are fighting for permission to get a nearby cesspool drained, so a much-needed playground for their kids can be built – an undertaking reminiscent of Kafka-esque proportions!

Back home, he prepares a speech to inform his son about his terminal cancer but gives up on it upon realising that Mitsuo and Kazue are busy discussing their own issues and don’t seem remotely interested in anything he has to say. Frustrated, he puts on his jacket again and walks out onto the streets, leaving both his son and his stepdaughter baffled because where would he go at such a late hour? Wandering the streets aimlessly, he ends up in a bar where he meets an eccentric writer (Yunosuke Ito) who introduces himself as an author of pulp-style novels and when, over a drink or two, Watanabe tells him of his condition, the novelist suddenly fancies himself as a kind of Mephistopheles with his new ‘friend’ being Faust. Prowling various disreputable joints on their tour of Tokyo’s nightlife, Watanabe finds himself confronted with delights and a world up until now rather alien to him, at the same time, he is unable to fully enjoy himself – well, wouldn’t you be the same in his situation? In a key scene, Watanabe loses his old hat on the street, with the novelist buying him a brand-new Homburg hat – a scene that indicates that Watanabe is now a ‘new’ and changed person. Somehow, the novelist then disappears from the script (and of course, from the screen).

Back home again, Watanabe ponders over his looming fate and the fact that his new-found pleasures – short-lived as they have to be – don’t in fact distract him from his gloomy thoughts and in all earnestness, there cannot possibly be much that does distract him in a positive way. Alas, the following day he happens to bump into Toyo (Miki Odagiri), a young and sassy employee (or subordinate, to be more precise) from his department, who feels the job she’s stuck in hasn’t much to offer and she wants out. Clearly, no thirty years of bureaucratic boredom for her then! Although the encounter with her is purely a coincidence, Toyo confesses that she needs in fact his signature for her official resignation letter. Watanabe is only too happy to oblige and upon spotting her stockings, which are badly torn around the heels, he buys her new nylons and decides to spend more time with her due to her uplifting and joyous personality. The big irony is that at the start of the film, Toyo got reprimanded by one of her superiors for sharing a joke during a business meeting – it is a joke which, unbeknownst to everyone in Watanabe’s department at the time, turned out to be prophetic: “Never taken any day off?” “No.” “Why? Are you indispensable?” “No. I don’t want them to discover they can do without me.”

Of course, the words of this joke completely hit the nail as regards to Watanabe’s condition and for the first time in his working life, he decides not to turn up at his office and spends time with Toyo instead, who initially feels amused and flattered by the attention. When he invites her home for a bite to eat, the housemaid wrongly assumes that her master is having an affair with the much younger woman and tells Mitsuo and Kazue about it, who are pretty disgusted at the idea that the old man has suddenly turned into a lecher, leading to more misunderstandings and arguments along the way. Meanwhile in the office, his colleagues begin to wonder what’s going on with Watanabe and even send one of their representatives to knock on his front door, to no avail. As rumours begin to circulate that Watanabe is enjoying a fling with a young woman (his colleagues have no idea the woman in question is their former employee), Toyo begins to feel irritated and uneasy in the old man’s company, who acts the perfect gentleman. After a final evening together, she tells him that she has found fulfilment in her new job as a toymaker and it triggers the desire in Watanabe that he, too, wants to do or create something that gives him fulfilment before he shuffles off this mortal coil. He remembers the on-going lobbying for a children’s playground and – returning to the office after a lengthy absence – decides that this project will be the one he is remembered for…. Not that his colleagues or even his son have an inkling about his terminal cancer. It is only after his sudden death and during his wake that the penny begins to drop…

Although quintessentially a tragedy, the film’s title translates as ‘To Live’ and that is exactly what our protagonist strives to do after he becomes aware of his terminal illness. There are heart-warming and even humorous moments which lift the movie from being a singularly depressing affair. Takashi Shimura, who prominently featured in Kurosawa’s RASHOMON and SEVEN SAMURAI to name but a few, delivers a fine and nuanced performance as a doomed man who decides to make the most of the little time he has left on this planet. Beautifully shot by Asakazu Nakai, IKIRU might be the odd one out among the Kurosawa canon but it’s precisely for that reason that it deserves this 4K restored 2-disc Blu-ray release.

Special Features:
Audio commentary / Akira Kurosawa: It is Wonderful to Create – Ikiru (2002, 42 mins) / Introduction by Alex Cox (2003, 15 mins) / It’s Ours Whatever They Say (1972, 39 mins): a community action film by Jenny Barraclough / The People People (1970, 22 mins): intended for school leavers, this COI film shows the vast range and variety of jobs available within the civil service / Original theatrical trailer / Image gallery / Illustrated booklet (first pressing only).