Ikiru (1952) - Akira Kurosawa 

While getting philosophical, Akira Kurosawa wondered what the world would be like without him, and what people would think of him. From there came the genesis for Ikiru, Kurosawas greatest contemporary film and most Japanese picture. It is the story of a man named Kanji Watanabe, played by Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura in his greatest role, who finds he has six months to live. We then see what he does, and in the second half of the film, what others say he did.
   Like Zhang Yimous To Live (1994), which is what Ikiru translates to in English, this film is truly moving and a little heartbreaking. This is quite a bit more subdued than Yimous film, which still had another forty years to wait before it was made. Whenever we know someone is going to die, and when that person knows we get a little affected. Watanabe is so pitiful, having wasted his whole life with nothing to show for it, that we immediately take pity on him. Kurosawa chooses to show nearly the entire first part of the film directly through Watanabes eyes. 
   Our narrator points out though that Watanabe has been as good as dead for the last 25 years. He has never missed a day of work, as a government worker, who does little else but stamp papers. He has a son that he doesnt quite understand, and a dead wife. Other than that he is completely alone. This all gets violently shaken up when he learns that he is going to die soon. At first he is terrified. Although he has done nothing for years, he is still scared to die. After a brief period like this he tries to cling to something, so he goes to his son. His son turns him out, and he doesnt even tell him he is sick.
   Thankfully there is a girl at his office, who is even younger than his son. She is the exact opposite of Watanabe. She is alive in the fullest sense, and is nowhere near Watanabes perfect attendance. It exactly this that draws Watanabe to her. Yet he soon realizes that she cant simply exist for his entertainment. With no one left to turn to, Watanabe starts to look at his legacy. Wondering just what he is leaving behind. We are then brought back to an earlier scene. This involved a group of women trying to get a run down sump to be turned into a park or playground. They are directed to every office possible, eventually ending back where they started. It is this project that Watanabe decides to dedicate himself to.
   Just as we here his resolve the scene stops. The narrator then tells us that he would be dead several months later. So no miracle cure or a regeneration of life by deeds. Yet there is something else. There is a story of someone trying to make good at the last minute. For the rest of the film, roughly forty minutes we are witnessing a memorial after his funeral. All the people who knew him then proceed to tell of his last days. In a series of flashbacks reminiscent of Citizen Kane (1941)we are shown the variances of truth similar to Rashomon (1950). 
   Ironically though, Kurosawa was yet to have seen Kane. Which means that the forty or so years people have been citing it as an influence on Ikiru have been lying. Proves the point that great minds think alike, or close to it. Unlike Kane, Ikiru starts to fall apart towards the end. The series of funeral guests get a little irritating and the whole ordeal goes on a bit too long. Supposedly this is how all Japanese funerals are, full of loud drunk praising of the deceased. Perhaps this is because it begins as something of an epilogue, but how many epilogues go on for forty minutes or more. The picture also loses most of its heart. 
   This second half does offer one saving grace though. In fact the finest sequence in the film, and perhaps the finest moment of any Kurosawa film. Once a police officer comes to return Watanabes hat, he tells of what he saw the night he died. The park was completed and it was snowing. First through the bars of the jungle gym, and from a slow pan around the park we see him sitting in a swing. Gently swinging, he is also singing the same song we heard earlier. A great sense of accomplishment on his face, and we are left knowing that he died happily. This is one of the most beautiful scenes in all of film, and this alone makes the entire film worth watching.
   Although not as popular as Rashomon, Ikiru has come to be known as one of Kurosawas undisputed masterpieces. It is also deeply close to his heart. Tackling both modern Japan, and the problem identity and living, a common theme of Kurosawas. Like Rashomon this did win a few awards, and did quite well internationally again. Critically it was very well received everywhere, including Japan which was always notoriously harsh with their own art. Here is Kurosawa in a nutshell. His themes and his style in the forefront. A picture perhaps only he could have pulled off.