Directed by: Akira Kurosawa
A sometime neglected drama by Kurosawa. A powerful -- if not masterpiece -- works on humanity was made between the two best-known Kurosawa's masterpieces (Rashomon and Seven Samurai). Probably the very reason of its neglection. But either way, the movie was made at the "golden moments" of Kurosawa if there's any such thing in Kurosawa's life.
Kenji Watanabe (Shimura, you'll see him later as a charismatic, and powerful ronin's leader in Seven Samurai) spent his working-life (thirty-years of working days without a single absent) as a bureaucrat in a city office doing nothing. This fact was emphasized by Kurosawa in a quite humoruous way of how the bureucrates bounced the complaining citizens from a unit to another. At one time (we knew the fact earlier than him, though), Watanabe was diagnosed to have an incurable cancer and had as much as five-months more to live. And then, among his depression he eagered to learns his meaning in his life as the title "Ikiru" (to live) suggest.
But his struggling won't came out easy as he finds himself unable to talk to his family (his son, Kaneko and his wife), spends a night in a debauchet night life with a novelist (Ito), and spends some time with a young woman (Odagiri) from his office, but ultimately decides that he could make a difference through his job which then we learnt from his co-workers' stories at his funeral.
The movie was yet again, clearly divided into two parts, before the funeral which told about Watanabe search of redemption for his loneliness, his struggle to learnt how to live with the death-judgement the doctor gave him, and his connection or how he sees through things with another especially those forementioned (his family, a stranger novelist, and a lively young woman) in process of his search of the meaning of life. Part one ended with the dedication of his approval and his effort to built a citizen-park which request was already declined and showed in brief at the early minutes of the movie. This part is showed superb Kurosawa's work on humanity. We sees how he learnt the surrounding of his character, and let the character (which superbly portrayed by Shimura, it would've been wrong to put Mifune in his place in this movie) moves on its own and intermingled nicely with his surroundings. As a consequence, you'd see more human nature and Japanese culture in this movie than any other. For example, how'd his son reacts to his old-man's behaviour when he caught him holding the young-woman's hand in his room. Quite some art.
But then part two, when his co-workers attended his funeral, gobbling sake and munching some rice-balls, i found that this movie reached its anticlimax. The politically conspiration behind the park, the "hows" and "whys" did Watanabe insisted on built the park, was told in a flash-back fashion. Though it added some spicy ingredients to the main-dish, i personally tought that the second part (nearly 40 minutes) was rather un-necessary. It sort of like an epilogue, a dessert that went sour and washed away the quality taste of the main-dish. I think that it was better if Watanabe's story told in a straight way, hence it would build the climax to the top instead of crumbling it halfway through.
Nonetheless, the final image when Watanabe slowly swinging in the playground he built with gentle snow pouring down in the last night of his life was among the most touching scenes in cinema. It was actually rebuild the climax or returning the quality taste of the main-dish.
Rating: *** / **** - Hail to Watanabe! i would give it four if the story told in a straight-forward way.