 Ikiru (1952) Hm, maybe they already have remade the film, 'cause it's really not far off from that Michael Keaton shitpile My Life, in which the dying guy spends his last days making a video journal for the son he will never know. Typical "me, me, ME!" approach, time-tested to help audiences relate to a story when they don't want to think too much. Ikiru, though, could be remade shot-for-shot, line-for-line, replacing only some of the settings, and it would be as immediate and perfect now as it was in 1952. It's too bad that most people tend to fidget while watching a slow, deliberate, quiet piece of art wherein nothing explodes, because Ikiru has so much to offer every one of us. Perhaps the most telling difference between this bold film and whatever the watered-down remake would be is the fact that the central character dies about two-thirds of the way into the film. We're programmed to expect a dying character to die shortly before the end of the film, with his redemption fully explained and illustrated, and substantially weepy closure handed to the audience on a platter. But that's one of the many things that makes Ikiru so unique and so perfect. Because it's not really about the dying man at all, he's just the example we're given to engage in a dialogue about life, fulfillment, joy, and bureaucracy. Bureaucracy?! Yes. Ikiru has as much to say about this as anything else … in some respects it's a charged polemic against submitting one's true self to one's day job. Watanabe (Takashi Shimura), a lifelong city official, spends his entire life dispassionately stamping forms and reviewing documents. He's so far shut down that he doesn't even know what his dreams would be, if he had any. And of course, he does, somewhere buried deep. And his terminal diagnosis helps him get in touch with the overwhelming purposelessness of how he's been spending his time, and inspires him to do something before he has no more chance to. Do you know any Watanabes? I know I do. Are you one? Hopefully not. The film is so beautifully constructed and shot that it barely reflects its age … I can think of extremely few movies that don't creak with age, but this one crackles, in its way, like any recent film I could name. One incredible sequence has Watanabe venturing out with a newfound degenerate writer friend into the seedy night. They end up at a club packed with woozy partiers while a live band plays some dirty babalu music. The scene so closely evokes a current-day 3:30am club vibe that it almost seems like a rave. The only scene in recent film that captures this feeling is the one in Matrix Reloaded—and keep in mind, Ikiru was made 50 years ago. After experimenting with this freindship and an awkward one with a beautiful, bubbly young girl, Watanabe's ultimate act is to push through the bureaucratic city council process and get a playground built for a needy neighborhood. This is where Hollywood would leave off, with the famous shot of Watanabe swinging on one of the swings as the snow falls, pleased and fulfilled, moments to death. That's where Kurosawa demonstrates true brilliance. The remainder of the film captures the reactions to Watanabe's life, and its strange late events, of the people in his life—family, friends, coworkers, people from the neighborhood in which he built the playground. At his wake, these people down increasing amounts of saki and dispute whether Watanabe was responsible for the playground, or simply "doing his job" (which, as we saw previously in the film, amounts to not getting things like this done). Credit is passed around until, at the right stage of inebriation, everyone breaks down and vows to live like Watanabe … to really take life by the balls and to live, to live! And, of course, in the light of day, they don't. Life goes on—that version of life that is defined by four familar walls and the same old faces, the same little tasks, day in, day out. Is the joke on them? Is Watanabe laughing from beyond? Is the joke on us? Except there is no joke … only the sad, mournful, haunting voice of Watanabe as he sang during two of the film's biggest turning points—singing the same sentimental tune, once sadly, once joyfully. And it's a song we know, whether we know it or not, because it is the song of the human heart. And Ikiru is its transcription, waiting to be played, waiting for you to choose your instrument.
Review by La Fée |
