Ikiru (Film Review)

1952 Toho
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa; Written by: Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni
Starring: Takashi Shimura and Miki Odagiri
MPAA Rating: NR; Running Time: 143 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 9/10

"You're gonna die in six months," Kanji's doctor tells the sad sack protagonist at the start of Akira Kurosawa's 1952 classic, Ikiru. Well, that's a paraphrase of what the doctor tells Kanji after several attempts at politely sidestepping the cause of Kanji's stomach pains, but Kanji instinctively knows the truth.
Kanji is a bureaucrat whose life has sum-totaled zero. He's helped exactly no one, been an agent for change for exactly nothing, and his live-in son and daughter-in-law only care about him to the point that they hope Kanji won't remarry and leave his inheritance to someone else. No wonder Kanji never tells them he is dying. Now the short-on-time bureaucrat, played with sad-puppy eyes to full-tilt by Takashi Shimura, must find some purpose and meaning before crossing the void and being forgotten. Laughter ensues.
No, really. Vast stretches of Kurosawa's film left me in stitches, with the kind of pitch-black humor rarely found in a film with this subject matter. There's a very modern quickfire montage early in the film, showcasing just how professionally useless Kanji is, as he bounces concerned mothers--who want to have a cesspool turned to a park--from not-helpful government agency to not-helpful government agency. This ensure the mothers' problem is never solved, and that Kanji puts in the minimum required effort.There's also a hilariously drawn-out sequence, where Kanji meets a cool novelist guy at a bar, and the two attempt to partake in Tokyo's raucous night-life, exhausting both men, and leading Kanji to perform the most bleak and depressing karaoke scene ever put to film. Kanji starts hanging out with a younger female co-worker in an attempt to metaphysically leech her youth and vitality away. She eventually quits her bureaucratic job to work at a factory that produces mechanical bunnies, bunnies whose natures are disturbingly reminiscent of Kanji's life.
Eventually, Kanji finds that he will neither find fulfillment from living it up, nor from another person. He's going to have to find the place he make the most difference, and apply himself there as intensely as possible. Weren't there some mothers who wanted a cesspool turned into a park?
In a twist that would count as a spoiler if it didn't come just halfway into the film, Ikiru immediately jumps to Kanji's funeral. The park has been built. In a scene of thoroughly modern editing, not just showcasing how forward-thinking Kurosawa was in 1952, but just how much his work influenced many indie-filmmakers in the 1990's and 2000's, Kurosawa cuts between the funeral goers' discussion of Kanji, and actual flashbacks to Kanji's actions. Did the sad-eyed middle-aged man really play the main part in having the park built, or was it a bureaucratic team effort? If Kanji was truly a one-man, bureaucracy-busting army, will any of his now inspired former-colleagues follow his lead?
Ikiru isn't quite perfect. There's a sporadic, non-character voiceover that feel a bit like narrative cheating to me, when Kurosawa is otherwise doing so many things to push the format. The first minutes of the film, though they are supposed to show just how dull and lifeless Kanji's life is, don't have to be quite so dull and lifeless. Still, that's a bit like throwing rocks at a T-Rex.
Ikiru is a beast of emotional and cinematic power. By mining pitch-black humor from its events, and enveloping the viewer in poetic, metaphorical imagery, Kurosawa is able to inject a humanity into this film that few other directors could realize. Takashi Shimura, who is great in so many other Kurosawa films, seems to have been born to play Kanji. His mounting gravitas, portrayed so much in the way he desperately bulges his always-sad eyes, is like a snowflake balling into an avalanche. Shimura imbues a song at the end of the film with such mystical, haunting power, especially after his karaokee scene earlier in the film projects so much impotence, it's a wonder if anyone who has ever lived could have played this part better.