I can't stop thinking about this film, I think the greatest ever, Kurosawa's "Ikiru"

[HamdenRice]

I've been on a Japanese film kick because the local independent film channel has Japanese films on Saturday morning. Last Saturday, I watched Kurosawa's Yojimbo, which was much stranger and more haunting than I expected it to be.

Anyway, the most haunting Japanese film I've seen, maybe the most haunting film I've ever seen, was Kurosawa's "Ikiru."

It's one of his few films after 1950 that is not a samurai film. It's subject should be a snore fest. It's about an aging Tokyo bureaucrat whose main function seems to be to make sure nothing gets done in public works.

Then he learns that he has only a few months to live, and after some soul searching, decides to devote the last months of his life to getting a tiny playground built for a group of poor mothers and their children in a slum area of Tokyo.

It shoulld be boring, because a lot of the film involves the hero, Mr. Watanabe, simply waiting around the offices of other bureaucrats trying to get permits. There's a certain irony in the casting because the humble Mr. Watanabe is played by Takashi Shimura, the action hero in Seven Samurai.

I can't explain how touching this film is! There is a scene of Mr. Watanabe just standing outside a bureaucrat's office, and just thinking about it makes my eyes tear up.

Some critics have called it Kurosawa's greatest film and some even have rated it the greatest film of all time.

Anyway, anyone else ever seen Ikiru?

Here's the wiki link and a pic of Shimura playing Watanabe-San:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikiru
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takashi_Shimura

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. I think it requires a certain maturity to appreciate it

I first saw it in a film history class when I was 19 years old, and I thought it was one of the most boring things I'd ever seen, as did most of my classmates. The professor told us that we would look at it differently when we were older.

Sure enough, the next time I saw it I was in my forties, and I understood what my professor had meant.

I wouldn't call it the greatest film of all time (I don't think there is any such thing), but it certainly is a profound one.

By the way, the title is usually translated as "To Live," but it really means "To Be Alive," as opposed to "Being Dead," which makes a great deal of sense, considering the plot.

[HamdenRice]

6. My age and brushes with mortality ...

certainly give it resonance, and I'm not sure I would have gotten it when I was younger.

That said, beyond the big theme, there is something about Watanabe-San's "passive resistance" that is even more moving than his mortality. At some point in the middle of the film, I thought, hey this is really about Ghandian passive resistance to oppression!

The other scene that just brings tears to my eyes is when Watanabe-San is supervising construction and because of his illness, he collapses, and all these impoverished housewives rush up to him to help him, and you realize that from his one kind act, he has so touched these women.

[Moondog]

2. I saw it once, about ten years ago.

It is definitely "a film" and not "a movie." And I liked it a great deal.

[hippywife]

3. I have not seen it.

I've only seen Dreams but it does sound like a wonderful film. And if Shimura's acting is even close to the compassion displayed in that photo, I can see why you would tear up regarding the circumstances he found himself in.

:hi:

[horseshoecrab]

4. Thank you for posting this

Just ordered it from the library. Thanks for the tip on this.


horseshoecrab

[Brother Buzz]

5. Life is Brief

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5XwTzG-f6A

[HamdenRice]

7. Almost unwatchably poignant! Thanks for the link.

Have you ever seen Tokyo Story?

[Brother Buzz]

8. Tôkyô monogatari is now on hold

While cursing my position in life and wishing my computer had enough horsepower to download netflix® my son quietly informed me I can order it online through our Carnegie library which is only two blocks away. I checked, they have it! I placed it on hold without even leaving the house! Cool beans, fourteen-year-olds are pretty savvy.

On edit: Wife, Marzipanni, suggests checking out 'Woman in the Dunes'(1964). She says it is very strange, but after living with Marzipanni for a quarter of a century, I have learned 'strange' doesn't mean bad.