Ikiru
1952
Akira Kurosawa
A few times a month, I've been asking members of Film Club to choose a movie that they've already seen and to make me watch it and write about it. I also ask for a prompt. Here's what Sean G. wanted to know about Ikiru:
Hypothetically, if everyone on earth watched Ikiru, do you think it would have a lasting effect on the way they live? And what kind of impact do you think the film's message have on you?
He nailed the most important question here, and the question that should ring out from every mouth into every ear after witnessing the beautiful blessing that is Ikiru. What impact can a movie possibly have on you? Is it lasting? Or, like the bureaucrats in the film, does it burn strong and then fade quickly, a fleeting glimpse into a better life never to be achieved?
I'm writing this from my own desk in my own office in my own government building. I'm 6700 miles away from where Watanabe sat pushing paperwork, but staring into his face at the beginning of this movie was akin to staring into a mirror. I don't need a cancer diagnosis to understand that what I do doesn't make any difference in the world. I tell myself I care but I mostly don't. I push things off to different departments whenever I can.
The only difference between 1950s Japan and 2020s America is that "living life to the fullest" is a total fucking cliché now. Maybe it was revelatory then, but it isn't now. You're more likely to see such a phrase on an insurance commercial starring Jon Bon Jovi than you are to actually feel it and believe it. And so the trick to getting a movie to change you in this particular way, I think, would be to somehow convince you that the cliché is true, and that you really should live your life to the fullest, every day, while you still can. Which is easier said than done.
But that's not the question. This has been discussed before, the idea that movies—and really basically anything—are not going to make a measurable impact in your life. You might change over the course of years and the accumulation of thousands or millions of tiny little moments, but one movie? It's not going to movie the needle. Just like Watanabe's death felt like it was going to be the tipping point for these gov't workers, but ultimately, and as expected, it wasn't. There's nothing wrong with that. You feel the pain of the one worker who stands up and looks like he wants to say something but then ultimately sits back down and shuts up and pushes his paperwork—who among us would be any different? Not me. Not me.
I don't think everyone on earth is able to acknowledge the rotten truth at the core of our existence: that it's mostly meaningless, that our impact is negligible at best. Most people would watch Ikiru and not even clock that this is what it's saying is the norm, and that it takes someone extraordinary to actually effect measurable change. We want to be Watanabe, we know that this is the ideal way to live (to help others), and yet we know that it'll mostly just not be like that, like almost never. Life is, instead, just like the runaround that the neighborhood women get at the start of the movie—pointless, frustrating, hopeless.
And yet we know that's not the point of the movie, or else no one would love it. You can't love something that is ultimately pessimistic. Ikiru was, instead, optimistic. Perhaps not about the human race, but about the idea that there are among us people who really are living their best life, and effecting real and positive change in their communities. It made me feel good to watch because it presented an ideal. Not the ideal, because our protagonist dies with almost an hour left to go in the movie, and I'm sure this man was in so much goddamn pain throughout the entire length of the film. But an ideal, that he found a small way to help people.
Maybe that's the message here. That we need to find our way of doing that, and that it might be different for everyone. Watanabe's revelation comes when he's desperately asking his young former co-worker how she lives her life, and she says simply that she makes things. What can we make in life, might be the question. Watanabe makes a playground. What can I make? What will be my legacy? How can I help people? Ikiru makes the question seem like the most important question you will ever ask.
I don't know the answer to that. I do know that, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise, I probably will not find the answer in my bureaucratic position. I supervise social workers. Those social workers are addressing incidents that have already happened. We are finding pain and desperately attempting to mitigate that pain. I don't think this process will result in too many people wailing at my funeral. People are probably more likely to show up and point at my coffin and laugh, knowing that I didn't do shit. But see, I'm acknowledging this. I know it to be true, and I'm not numb to it. It keeps me up at night, knowing that I'm not making an impact. So the impact that Ikiru can—and did—make for me is that it can remind me, make it even clearer how important the journey is, the quest to find your purpose, and then fulfill that purpose with everything you have.
GRADE: 5 pukes out of 5
STRAY THOUGHTS: Beautiful film. I gave the last 1950s black-and-white Japanese film I watched, Tokyo Story the 5-puke treatment as well, but I think this one was even better. I guess this shouldn't surprise you, that I'm watching the best of what a time/culture combo has to offer, and finding that, yeah, it's the best. That would be like waiting until I was in my 30s to listen to Led Zeppelin, and then being shocked in finding that they have at least six perfect albums. Like, yeah, duh, the problem is you, why did you wait so long to engage?
Worth noting that it was the third time I saw the actor Takashi Shimura, who played Watanabe, in a Never Seen It movie, after Rashomon and Seven Samurai. He starred in all three. I liked those movies less for sure, but I don't think it was because of Shimura. And obviously he does incredible work here. The way he stoops throughout, the way he goes manic at key times, the way he displays courage through the sickness that envelops him.
I had more to say about the moviemaking when it came to Tokyo Story, and less to say here. Another question that Sean G. asked was about my thoughts on the fact that Watanabe died halfway through the film, and I thought that was a fascinating decision. I'm sure there was a temptation to make the whole movie flashback style, but it was cool that they had it both ways. His death packed a bigger punch that way, and added some mystery to it. And allowed the other characters to tell his story, which I think was important—they had to come to their own conclusions about the character, and then become inspired by him, and then let that inspiration fade over time. It wouldn't have worked if we weren't on that journey with the funeral-goers.
Okay, now I'm just rambling. Definitely one of my favorite movies in Film Club so far.
NEXT TIME: Zoom for Pillow Talk is this Tuesday at 9 PM! See you there!
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