Review of Ikiru (1952) by Stuart K — 30 Apr 2014

Directed and co-written by Akira Kurosawa, this touching and moving drama was partially inspired by Leo Tolstoy's 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich. You could almost say this is Kurosawa's take on It's A Wonderful Life (1946), and there are parallels in places.

But this was the one that helped put Kurosawa on the map as a internationally renowned talent, and it was onwards and upwards after the success of this. Set in Tokyo, bureaucrat Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) is a middle aged man who has held the same monotonous position for about 30 years, and nothing has changed in that time.

His wife is dead, and his son Sakai (Haruo Tanaka) doesn't have much time for his father, only his money. However, when Kanji learns that he has stomach cancer and will die within a year, something changes in him.

He decides not to tell his son, and he ends up spending a lot of time in nightclubs in Tokyo. He starts spending more time outside the office and when he meets office employee Toyo Odagiri (Miki Odagiri), he begins to embrace and enjoy life a lot more.

It's a sentimental drama without becoming unbearably mawkish, and it's an ode to the joys of life you can find if you just get out of your daily routine more. This would win a Special Prize at the 1954 Berlin International Film Festival, and for his follow-up, Kurosawa unleashed Seven Samurai (1954).