100 Movies Every Catholic Should See #69: Ikiru (1952)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Starring Takashi Shimura.

“We only realize how beautiful life is when we face death”

Watanabe is, externally, a success. He has stayed in his post at the County Affairs office for 30 years, never missing a single day. He has worked his way up to being the chief of the office. However, the man has never really lived. As the film opens, fading into an X-ray of a tumor which resides in the protagonist's stomach–one that he does not yet know he has–the narrator tells us, “Here's our protagonist. But what a bore it would be to describe his life now. Why? Because he's only killing time. He's never actually lived.”

Directed by Akira Kurosawa, best known for his large-scale samurai movies (Seven Samurai, Ran, Throne of Blood), Ikiru was created by a master. Through simple, yet powerful cinematography, long takes, and beautiful set design, this film communicates its themes effortlessly. Kurosawa allows each scene time to breathe. While this film–especially the first act–may come across as being somewhat slow, I believe every scene is given the time that it needs. Headed by an incredible and powerful performance by Takashi Shimura, this film reveals a man who appears perfectly ordinary yet becomes so much more. 

The office in which Mr. Watanabe works—and is so successful—does not, in fact, get anything done. Perhaps by design, whenever a proposal is given or an inquiry is made, it is stamped by Watanabe and sent off to another office, Public Works, the Parks Department, the Sanitation Department, Environmental Sanitation, etc. Therefore, as the papers stack up higher and higher, none of the problems actually get solved. One of these requests, brought to attention by a group of women known as Kuroe Women’s Association, is regarding a large pool of standing water that has not yet been dealt with. Like everything else, this request ends up being just another piece of paper and is ignored. The following day, Watanabe does not come to work. He never misses work. In fact, he’s just a month away from having the record of 30 years with no absences. Well, on this particular day this doctor’s appointment is more important. As he’s waiting to see the doctor for his diagnosis, a man in the waiting room perfectly describes all of Watanabe’s symptoms–without knowing he has them–and labels them as stomach cancer. More than this, the man tells him that doctors tell people with stomach cancer that it’s just a mild ulcer, no need for surgery. Watanabe enters the doctor’s office and sits down as he is told, “It’s just a mild ulcer. No need for surgery.” Horrified, Watanabe leaves the office a different man than he entered. 

With his new outlook, Watanabe does not return to work. Nor does he return to almost any of his regular activities. Instead, he goes out looking “to live” (Ikiru roughly translates to english as “to live”). He withdrawals fifty-thousand yen from the bank and goes to a bar. He’s never bought himself a drink, he says. A nice man at the bar offers to take him around and help him spend his money. After a little while of money wasting, they eventually end up in another bar, where the piano player asks for requests. Watanabe suggests “Gondola no Uta” (“Life is Brief”). As the piano man begins to play, Watanabe begins to sing. The effect of his soft, deep voice echoes throughout the room. 

Life is brief

Fall in love, maidens

Before the crimson bloom

Fades from your lips

Before the tides of passion

Cool within you

For those of you

Who know no tomorrow

Life is brief

Everyone stops and stares. This part of the film defines the true beginning of Watanabe’s life. After this, it is clear he is almost an entirely different person than before. He spends some of this time wandering and wasting money, trying to determine what to do. After all, he has never really lived, how should he know how to now?

After a few weeks of his absence, an employee of the County Affairs Office searches for Watanabe so that he can stamp her resignation papers and she can get a new job. She finds him in the streets and, after reminding him of who she is, she asks for his stamp of approval. He asks why she’s quitting. “Boredom,” she replies. 

For those fond of the film It’s a Wonderful Life, Ikiru is a perfect watch. Another life-affirming, black and white masterpiece. The next part of this film is also somewhat similar in that it explores the greatest success of the protagonist's life through the lens of his death. Four months have passed and Watanabe is dead. However, through a gathering of colleagues and family at his wake, the audience shortly discovers the life Watanabe finally learned how to live. Knowing that he must do something meaningful before he dies, and that his death is most certainly coming quickly, he returns to the County Affairs Office, much to the surprise of his coworkers—especially the one who was getting ready to replace Watanabe as the office chief. He digs through one of the many stacks of paperwork on his old desk and finds the proposal brought by the Women's Association a few months back. He brings this proposal to everyone he can think of. Every chief of every office who, just a few months ago, rejected this very proposal. Even his own office, the employees directly below Watanabe, are extremely confused about his actions. However, after continuing to push and refusing to back down, the proposal goes through and construction of a new park in the area where there currently resides a large puddle of standing water begins. 

Meanwhile, at Watanabe’s wake, something else happens. At first, the colleagues don’t speak very fondly of Watanabe or his life. Namely, they claim he was not really responsible for the building of the park. Sure he helped, but the Parks Department drew up the plans and oversaw construction. The conversation takes a slight turn, however, when someone asks if he knew he had cancer before he died. Eventually, they determine that he must have known, and that his knowledge of his upcoming death is the reason behind his radical change in behavior five months ago. “But any of us could die at any moment,” says one of the men. Now, the mood within the room changes drastically. Though Watanabe may not have known it. After death, his life—the act of simply living—served as a powerful witness to the truth for these men. All of them left that wake changed for the better. Through the example of Watanabe’s life–albeit in just the five months before he died–these men resolve to follow in his footsteps. The now-iconic final scene of Ikiru is not something that should be described in words, but simply witnessed by a given viewer. 

The life-affirming quality of this film is something I have only ever felt elsewhere in the aforementioned It’s a Wonderful Life. The effect this film has by the end is powerful enough that I believe it could cause real change in the life of the viewer. If you sit silently for 2 hours and 23 minutes and simply observe the last six months of the life of Kanji Watanabe, it will have an effect on you, too.