My Film of the Week

IKIRU(1952) | Film By Akira Kurosawa

"A bureaucrat tries to find a meaning in his life after he discovers he has terminal cancer." - IMDB

'Ikiru' means 'To Live'.

This is one of my favourite films. The main character Kanji Watanabe is a public liaison his son is resentful but doesn't know he has stomach cancer, so Kanji has money and goes to a bar looking for a good time. The stranger takes him to town gambling, dining and visiting the red light district. They wind up at a bar where the pianist calls for requests and Kanji, asks for "Life Is Short--Fall in Love, Dear Maiden." he plays it, and then the starts to quietly sing along. The bar falls silent, the party girls and the drunken men are drawn in for a moment musing the shortness of their lives.

This is the equilibrium of the film where Kanji realises in his that in his 30 years of working at Tokyo City Hall he hasn't achieved anything significant. Kanji is the chief public liaison officer, he has never taken a day off. His job is to deal with citizen complaints, accept he never decides on any, he just stamps the paper to show he has looked at it.

Meanwhile, 'A group of women have been shuttled from one office to another, protesting against a pool of stagnant water in their neighbourhood. Watanabe becomes a madman, personally escorting the case from one bureaucrat to another, determined to see that a children's park is built on the wasteland before he dies. It all leads up to Watanabe's final triumph, seen in one of the greatest closing shots in the cinema.' (Said Roger Rebert).

The women's case becomes Watanabe's, he decides to make it his one achievement before he dies, going from building to building fighting for his case.

In essence the film is not what the Old Man Kanji Watanabe learns about life, but what his son does. People believe his cause of death was partying and erratic behaviour. When actually it was a matter of achieving something for his son to be proud of before he died.

The film is still very relevant today in many ways. Life is to short - we should pay more attention to each other, and do something that we and/or others will be proud of accomplishing.