Review of Ikiru (1952) by Anonymous User — 25 Jul 2009

Two "perfect" ratings in 2 days? What's going on? Well, they deserve it.

I was never sold on Akira Kurosawa. Or rather, I was never *that sold on him. I've really enjoyed everything I've seen from him (Kagemusha, Rashomon, Yojimbo are all easy 4+ star films for me) but Ikiru takes my admiration to a whole new level. What an amazing film. This is one of the few movies that goes beyond the 100 minute mark (or actually, one of few movies in general) where I did not check the time. And it's 2 1/2 hours long, an hour beyond my comfort zone. The story is that engaging. Everyone should see it.

Ikiru is a meditation on life, Kurosawa asking the audience (and in effect, asking himself) "what does it mean to be alive?". This is answered with the protagonist, Watanabe. A widower, Watanabe has terminal cancer, working as a drone-like cog in an impersonal bureaucratic machine, with a son he has trouble opening up to. It's not until he finds out he's dying that he actually starts living, and the determination, hard work, persistence, and the legacy he leaves behind in the span of a few months made life worth living.

Where to start with all the wonderful things in this movie? Everything you would expect from a Kurosawa classic, really: too many excellent, memorable shots to count, a story that unravels at a glacial pace while maintaining a captivating momentum, staggeringly effective use of music, one of the best acting performances ever in Takashi Shimura, a brilliantly nonlinear narrative, spectacular script that succeeds in both drawing the viewer in and not painting Watanabe as a subject of undeserved pity.

Overall, Ikiru manages to create a life-affirming picture about imminent death and the essence of being alive without the melodrama, without the false sentimentality, without the pretentiousness, without the sermonizing. It's a work of beautiful, pure passion. A masterpiece.