Ikiru = to live = living = doomed

‘Ikiru’ is a departure from Kurosawa’s other work and presents a thoughtful and moving piece on life and death. The film opens with an x-ray detailing the stomach cancer of the main character, Kanji Watanabe. The image sets the premise of the piece but not necessarily the tone, which vacillates between hope and despair. Kanji’s physical and mental health is not only damaged by the cancer within, but as Kurosawa subtly suggests, is also contributed to by the inertia of Kanji’s civil service job and life in post-war Tokyo. The film is primarily concerned with Kanji’s struggle to accept his condition and the downwards spiral that drives him to self destructive behaviour. He eventually meets a girl who convinces him that he should spend his dying months doing good. This prompts him to seek approval for having a children’s playground built. The playground will provide a source of enjoyment to the children of the community as well as be an epitaph to good citizen Kanji. Cast includes Takashi Shimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Kyoko Seki and Miki Odagiri. In Japanese with English subtitles.