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Aging Death Japan

Ikiru begins with the credits in Japanese and a strangely Westernish soundtrack. Scene one is an x-ray of a man's stomach. A narrator tells us that this stomach belongs to the protagonist of our story and goes on to explain that, at this point in the story, our protagonist has no idea that he has stomach cancer. Cut to "Publications Affairs" where the sector chief is ruffling through a small stack of papers; checking figures and so on. Cut to two mothers as they discuss their children and complain about a polluted pond that they would like the Public Affairs Department to take care of for them. The man that takes the complaint asks the sector chief what he should do about this and gets the response that he should discuss it with the Engineering Department. {Sound familiar?}

The narrator tells us that the sector chief is our protagonist as the camera pans across one side of his crowded desk. The sector chief is simply "passing time", "He's not really even alive", "the bureaucratic machine has worn him down". Cut to a montage of many men passing the buck; each telling us to go to a different department. After twenty or so different offices, the women that want the cesspool in their neighborhood cleaned up finally get irritated enough to throw a tantrum. While this sort of thing may have worked on any other day, our hero, the sector chief has decided to take the rest of the day off today so, they'll have to put their request in writing. For some reason, they're willing to do this.

Cut to a few of his underlings discussing their boss's unusual behavior. We rejoin our protagonist at the x-ray lab. He clutches at his stomach every once in a while and walks through the hospital with a distinctly pained look on his face. While he's waiting for the results of his x-rays, our hero discusses stomach ailments with one of the other waitees. When the talk comes round to stomach cancer, it to upsets him severely. The doctors lie to him but, after his conversation with the man in the waiting room, he knows the truth. He has stomach cancer. After he leaves, one of the doctors speculates that he may have six months to live. Cut to Kanji Watanabe {our hero {Takashi Shimura}} walking through town looking very upset.

Zoom on a very large building. A man and woman enter while wondering aloud that there are no lights on in the building. The two wander around the house and discuss convincing "dad" to get a modern home. When they turn on the lights, Kanji is sitting alone in the dark. Mitsuo, the man {Nobuo Kaneko}, asks "dad, what's wrong". Kanji's reply is a depressed "nothing". When he's gone to his own room, Mitsuo's wife, Kazue {Kyôko Seki} complains about the old man for a while. Mitsuo complains right along with her. Cut to Kanji standing in the dark then to the old man staring intently at a picture of his wife. Cut to the funeral of Kanji's wife and many people dressed in black and crying as their car follows a hearse down an old block road. A bit of reminiscing by means of flashbacks and some beautiful camera work, depresses Kanji even further. Much of this sequence is pretty emotional and played perfectly. Parts of it are pretty touching.

Several days after this, a man from the office that Kanji works in stops by the house to see what has happened to him. He's not been to work all week. Kazue is a little shocked by this seeing that Kanji has been leaving for work every day as usual. She makes a phone call to Mitsuo who displays similar shock and everyone back at the office is left wondering as well. This is the first time Kanji's missed work in thirty years. Eventually, the camera catches up to Kanji in a bar where he's sitting and trying to drink himself to death. In another particularly well played and moving scene, Kanji makes friends with a novelist {Yûnosuke Itô} in the bar when he offers the man some sleeping pills. The two send a bit of time discussing Kanji's cancer, his impending death and the stupid way he's wasted the last twenty years of his life. This total stranger is the only person in his life that he's been able to talk to about all of the pain in his life and, for some reason, the guy seems to understand Kanji's feelings completely.

The novelist convinces Kanji to to start living it up and takes him out barhopping. To paraphrase him: "It's about the time that you started dying that you began to live {The English translation of the film's title, by the way is "To Live".} This is followed by one long Felliniesque {Kurosawaesque?} tapestry of incredible images and emotions that bears a real resemblance to bits of 8 1/2 and La Dolce Vita; Something of a twisted, night time, Japanese fairy-land in black and white circa 1952. This sort of lifestyle is a little on the rough side for Kanji but, as he's moping about after his night out, he runs into a woman from work Toyo {Miki Odagiri}. Toyo and Kanji hit it off immediately and develop a relationship of sorts very quickly. Kanji is happy for a while...

There are some absolutely wonderful still images in this film as well as some great portrait stuff and the lighting in a few of the nightime, bar scenes is just plain amazing. Ikiru is an enormously powerful film with tremendously powerful performances by each of the three primary characters: Kanji, Toyo and the novelist. They all add essential contributions to the film. In Ikiru, Kurosawa has managed to put together a two and a half hour film that's visually stunning and that has incredible depth. If you are, have been or think you ever might be getting on in years there's probably something to be learned from this movie.