So, I have just read the nytimes.com review of Ikiru and boy do I have an objection to the reviewer's analysis of Ikiru. He says that the film "dies" during it's final expository sequence recalling the last few months of the protagonist. I think it is highly imaginative and creative to tell the story from the perspective of others. Kurosawa uses this technique to, perhaps, even more dramatic affect in Rashomon where a murder is reconstructed from recollections.
Unlike the nytimes.com reviewer who's article was published on the first American screening of Ikiru in 1960, I find the narrative technique of reconstructing the story from flashbacks and recollections to be a re-freshing and innovative narrative structure. The film could have progressed along classical plot lines, perhaps, like the nytimes reviewer speculates, ending in an ironic twist.
Yet, I disagree. Kurosawa and his screenwriting partners did a fantastic job by recreating the final months of the protagonist. It brings out the character of not only Shimura's character, but it exposes the hippocracy and self-aggrandizement of the government officials from city hall. It also reveals overt references to Japanese society which bring a whole other dimension to the film for international audiences. I marveled at the setting of the mourning of Shimura's character's death. His portrait hung there, surrounded by flowers, intercut to close-up, provided a somber reminder of his life and the themes of the story.
This film provides a lot of material for analysis. It serves as a satire of not only the Japanese bureaucracy, but also of government bureaucracy everywhere. Secondly, it has deep philosophical meanings; how should I live my life? It inspired in me questions like; who would go to my funeral? Am I really living? What have I done with my life? Before I began watching the film on Hulu I heard a voice that told me this film will change your life. Perhaps, perhaps not, but it will cause you to re-evaluate how you live, what you do at work, how your relationships with family members, co-workers, and friends are, and what kind of legacy you have left to the World.
I suppose you could compare this film to other contemporary works. The most glaring one that jumps out at me is Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. Shimura's character, prior to his rehabilitation at his mourning comes off as similar to Willy Loman. Both are facing the end of a career; one as a government bureaucrat, the other as a salesman. Both have accomplished little. The are the epitome of the organization man, of middle class ethics and morals. They are both alienated from a society that they seem so distant from. After so many years working, saving, raising a family it all seems to be coming apart at the end. Yet Ikiru has more of a sweet after taste then Death of a Salesman which has a tragic ending. Yet they are similar stories. Both about alienation in modern society. What does one do when your workplace of so many years is gone? When your family only sees you as money or worse? What happens when you face death? Shimura's character comes out far better than Willy Loman, but I think both films are a criticism of the conformity, sacrifice, and discipline so cherished by modern industrial societies in the 50s and 60s.
Having seen a substantial proportion of Kurosawa's work this movie reveals a different quality than the films I saw as an early Kurosawa fan. His later works were the most familiar to me. I remember one Sunday while I was living in NYC I watched all of Seven Samurai on the Ovation Network. It was a great experience that I shall cherish for the rest of my life. Ikiru, though, was anything but a Samurai classic. It was a meditation on life and the crisis which we all must face, realizing our own mortality.
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