Review of Ikiru (1952) by Shounak B — 22 Feb 2014

This time Kurosawa's film not only criticizes and mocks about the patriarchal social hierarchy, but also the whole administrative process of post war Japan, and there lies the main reason of its universality in its concept, which is not a bit outdated.

Here the Master even didnt leave the main protagonist out of criticism. The narrative changes in unusual way,sometimes through voiceover,or sometimes through the eyes of different supporting casts here, but never leaves the central plot.

When the fellow bureaucrats trying to postmortem their recently dead colleague and come to conclusion that despite suffering a mortal disease, only he had the ability to do such extraordinary thing and the last shot of the film fully supports that, it seems like a slap to us.