Director: Akira Kurosawa
Writer: Akira Kurosawa & Shinobu Hashimoto
Cast Character
Takashi Shimura... Kanji Watanabe
Shinichi Himori... Kimura
HaruoTanaka... Sakai
Minoru Chiaki... Noguchi
Miki Odagiro... Toyu Odagiri
Bokuzen Hidari... Ohara
The story Ikiru (to live) is about a man bogged down by his responsibilities as a bureaucrat. He loses all enthusiasm and joy with his monotonous job and routine. Each day he he gets one paper to sign off on only to be reintroduced to another. One particular scene in the beginning which strikes you is when the other office workers tell a joke to which they all laugh and Kanji looks at them stunned, as it joy and humor were real things. He tirelessly stamps documents not even having enough energy to enjoy other people. He is comatose.
A person in the office wisely says, "The best way to protect your place in this world is to do nothing at all." People at work redirect people's complaints to other government offices to avoid helping others. They do this they are partly lazy and because they don't have the funds to help everyone so they just deny everything that is asked. The problem though is that no one tries to do anything and their ideals are damaged from when they first began their jobs. In the hospital he listens to a man who complains about his pain. Kanji Watanabe is stuck with a life having to listen to others which is painful as it is.
The doctor tells him he has a harmless ulcer. When he leaves the doctor tells the nurse he has 6 months to live. His office workers talk about him and his unchanging routine. He even eats the same noodles everyday. Some comment that a few people there are glad he is missing. A fellow patient tells him that is the doctor tells him he has an ulcer he has less than a year to live. The patient tells Kanji of all the possible side effects and reactions he will get. He also tells him of the codes and euphemisms the doctor says to patients so they won't be scared. Kanji uncomfortably tries to distract himself from this insensitive man. It isn't that he is a bad person but he is without any sort of life inside that he is frightening to watch.
His children don't care about him and want him to retire so he gets a pension to buy a bigger house. They scheme to get his money and talk at length at night in the house they they are sick of the small house they are in and that he will be dead soon. When they change rooms they turn on the light and see Kanji there having listened to it all. Kanji doesn't care as he he is used to his son and daughter-in-laws indifference. The only thing he has some warmth to is his dead wife who passed away. He pays respect to her in the shrine built in their house.
Knowing time is short and he will die soon Kanji goes missing, doesn't call in to work and withdraws 50,000 Yen. His family talks about him and thinks he has found a new woman and escaped somewhere. He goes to a bar and drinks with a customer to forget his pain telling him his story. He tells the guy he wants to spend 50,000 Yen and asks him how to do it. The guys says to be greedy with life and experience it rather than wait. He tells Kanji he will reclaim his wasted life. They drink and visit every corner of the city. He goes to a swing jazz club and has to get back his constantly stolen hat from one the singers who playfully teases him.
Kanji picks an old love song to sing to to which all the people in the club stare in disbelief at his sadness while singing. They stop dancing to watch and let him grieve over his dead wife and empty life at that. The tragedy with Kanji is not his pain or sadness but his inability to feel anything. He is a walking corpse. He goes to a maraca band and dances the night away with his new friend from the bar and does more in one night than he did in his whole life. Kanji's eyes are so big and expressive with emotion throughout the whole film. It is as if they cannot hold all the misery he is carrying. Kurosawa's pick of this actor was superb.
A person in the office wisely says, "The best way to protect your place in this world is to do nothing at all." People at work redirect people's complaints to other government offices to avoid helping others. They do this they are partly lazy and because they don't have the funds to help everyone so they just deny everything that is asked. The problem though is that no one tries to do anything and their ideals are damaged from when they first began their jobs. In the hospital he listens to a man who complains about his pain. Kanji Watanabe is stuck with a life having to listen to others which is painful as it is.
The doctor tells him he has a harmless ulcer. When he leaves the doctor tells the nurse he has 6 months to live. His office workers talk about him and his unchanging routine. He even eats the same noodles everyday. Some comment that a few people there are glad he is missing. A fellow patient tells him that is the doctor tells him he has an ulcer he has less than a year to live. The patient tells Kanji of all the possible side effects and reactions he will get. He also tells him of the codes and euphemisms the doctor says to patients so they won't be scared. Kanji uncomfortably tries to distract himself from this insensitive man. It isn't that he is a bad person but he is without any sort of life inside that he is frightening to watch.
His children don't care about him and want him to retire so he gets a pension to buy a bigger house. They scheme to get his money and talk at length at night in the house they they are sick of the small house they are in and that he will be dead soon. When they change rooms they turn on the light and see Kanji there having listened to it all. Kanji doesn't care as he he is used to his son and daughter-in-laws indifference. The only thing he has some warmth to is his dead wife who passed away. He pays respect to her in the shrine built in their house.
Knowing time is short and he will die soon Kanji goes missing, doesn't call in to work and withdraws 50,000 Yen. His family talks about him and thinks he has found a new woman and escaped somewhere. He goes to a bar and drinks with a customer to forget his pain telling him his story. He tells the guy he wants to spend 50,000 Yen and asks him how to do it. The guys says to be greedy with life and experience it rather than wait. He tells Kanji he will reclaim his wasted life. They drink and visit every corner of the city. He goes to a swing jazz club and has to get back his constantly stolen hat from one the singers who playfully teases him.
Kanji picks an old love song to sing to to which all the people in the club stare in disbelief at his sadness while singing. They stop dancing to watch and let him grieve over his dead wife and empty life at that. The tragedy with Kanji is not his pain or sadness but his inability to feel anything. He is a walking corpse. He goes to a maraca band and dances the night away with his new friend from the bar and does more in one night than he did in his whole life. Kanji's eyes are so big and expressive with emotion throughout the whole film. It is as if they cannot hold all the misery he is carrying. Kurosawa's pick of this actor was superb.She asks him if he is sick and is friendly but even at home he does paperwork. He is an undying workaholic. She wants to connect with him but he doesn't see it. They leave together to which his son and daughter-in-law think it's his new girlfriend. He buys her some stockings after seeing the holes in hers.
They spend the day together playing games, ice skating and seeing an amusement park. When they get home he tells her why he is a "mummy", the nickname she affectionately gave him. His says it's because his son doesn't care about him anymore. She tells him despite that he still cares for his son. Next we see Kanji trying to forgive his son for his assholism. He tries to tell his son he has cancer but son interrupts and criticizes him for bringing a girl like Toyo home.
When they go out again she sees everyone having fun and his sullen mood. She gets sick of it and says she is bored with him. She tells him she quit her job to make toys because it gives her joy imagining all the kids it will make happy and he should do the same. He should make something instead of signing forms all day.
Kanji eventually dies but did at least try to clean the sewage park he neglected for so long. He tries to help the people he was paid to neglect before. The Deputy Mayor tries to take credit for the park that was built that Kanji's passion was responsible for. The reporters criticize the Deputy Mayor at the funeral of Kanji for even mentioning Kanji's name during the opening ceremony of the park.
At Kanji's funeral the people he finally helped all cry and burn incense for him. During the wake at the funeral the bureaucrats ask the son if he was aware his dad knew he has stomach cancer. His son tells them he didn't since he would have told him. What his son doesn't realize is that Kanji hated him.
Everyone at the funeral tries to figure out why the drastic change in Kanji. One man thought it was because of a young woman he saw that made him happy. What the biggest question in the movie is whether he pushed to make the park to make a difference or if he made it to have some of the happiness Toyo had. She said she was so happy at her new job making toys for kids because she would know they would love them and imagined herself being them. Kanji so miserbale wanted to emulate her happiness and find out she herself did it.
In a flashback scene to when he was alive it shows some Yakuza hoods threatening him to back down because his plans interfere with their restaurant. When they threaten him he smiles for the first time in the movie because now he has something worth dying for. He has a mission to accomplish building the park.
At the funeral wake they continue talking about him and his outrageous behavior and passion and concluded he acted this way because he must have known he didn't have a long time to live. They recall him watching a sunset for a few minutes and then walking away saying he mustn't waste time. They recall their past ideals and how they went sour because "doing anything but nothing is radical" as one bureaucrat said it best. His fellow employees vow to serve others like Kanji Watanabe-san did. They get drunk ad make false promises. The next day a sewage problem happens and the new Section Chief tells his subordinate to redirect the complaint to the Engineering department. Nothing has changed except the park that Kanji built that the community now enjoys.
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