Gateway Cinephiles

3-Minute Intro: Ikiru

Screened: October 15, 2007
Format: DVD - Criterion Collection (2004)
Selected by: Andrew

Ikiru, usually translated to English as To Live, is the thirteenth film by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa is most widely renowned for his epic, period samurai films, such as Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and Ran. Ikiru, set in a contemporary Japan of suffocating bureaucracy and hollow nightlife, is far removed from the spectacle and violence of such films. Nonetheless, Ikiru is often regarded as Kurosawa’s first true masterpiece. Although released in Japan in 1952, the film was not distributed internationally until 1960, allegedly because it was thought “too Japanese” for Western audiences. Nothing could be further from the truth; Ikiru is a universal meditation on life and death.

Reportedly inspired by Russian writer Leo Tolstoy’s 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Ikiru is the story of a modern man grappling with his own imminent demise. What elevates Ikiru above countless other melodramas about terminal illness is its superb art. Kurosawa utilizes his trademark techniques to create a film that is not merely sad, but profoundly, desperately sad, and also achingly beautiful. The story by screenwriter Hideo Oguni is deliberately paced, and told in nonlinear fashion. As you watch, take particular note of the Kurosawa’s use of framing, wipes, and dissolves, and the manner in which scenes in past and present echo one another. The film’s lead performance is by Takashi Shimura, an actor who worked with Kurosawa on eleven films. In Ikiru, Shimura gives the most extraordinary and heartfelt performance of his career. When Kurosawa employs a close-up of Shimura, observe how much the actor conveys with only tiny changes in facial expression.

Kurosawa himself once wrote “Sometimes I think of my death. I think of ceasing to be… and it is from these thoughts that Ikiru came.” Critic Roger Ebert has described Ikiru as “one of the few movies that might actually be able to inspire someone to lead their life a little differently.” The film transcends overused phrases such as a “life-affirming” and achieves something deeply stirring and sublime. It is consistently regarded as one of the finest Japanese films ever made, and it includes some of the most beautifully composed shots ever captured on film.