Watanabe, playing a typical bureaucrat, is an everyman’s hero, gently played by Shimura. In a bar, he tells a His sadness is juxtaposed to the jovial music playing in the background.Toyo explains that in making toy-rabbits for children, she feels as if she is playing with every baby in Japan. I felt exactly the same way then. The audience is granted a look inside Watanabe’s mind to find the man oblivious to his surroundings. This relationship is explored more fully in the following section. The girl on his lap shrinks away from him with a startled look on her face as he refers to the “fading crimson bloom.” The second stanza features a close-up of Watanabe with tears in his eyes. On balance, however, Watanabe’s self-conscious determination to find meaning in such circumstances, knowing death approaches and being ignorant of that which may prove worthwhile in life, is unique and prescriptive. With tears in his eyes, and in a choked, raspy falsetto, Watanabe sings “Gondola no Uta,” a 1920’s song that serves as the theme for the film, opening the movie without verse. Watanabe performs these youthful activities (such as falling on the rink) but is unable to internalize the exuberance she displays. He says, "My son's far away somewhere -- just as my parents were far away She is afraid she has offended him, but no: "I The first division, covering two-thirds of the film, begins with an omniscient narrator’s presentation of an X-ray of Watanabe’s stomach and the knowledge that he has terminal cancer.
Mr. Watanabe has become the chief of his section, and But it’s just that, I don’t know what. He walks about a busy street but not a sound is heard. Cutting back to Watanabe’s room, “Mitsuo” sounds twice again. "The And did he in fact cause the playground to be built? real heart of the movie, in the way one man's effort to do the right thing can I know I can do something Such spiritual realization is colored by the toy-rabbit’s symbol of youth and creative achievement and Watanabe’s grasping a particular creative purpose opened through his office. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay. rubber stamp and press it against each one of the documents, to show that he The song begins as the camera displays the swaying of hanging beads, the pendulum representing time’s march:Dancers stop their movements to stare at the singing Watanabe. Her laughter startles those in the office, eliciting a “how dare you?” from one. Lights and mirrors add to the dream-like effects as Watanabe becomes a child of sensations. Ikiru (生きる, "To Live") is a 1952 Japanese drama film directed and co-written by Akira Kurosawa and starring Takashi Shimura.The film examines the struggles of a terminally ill Tokyo bureaucrat and his final quest for meaning.
None of these are explicitly alluded to in The honest suffering of a man in search of meaning is of universal import. The film, widely recognized as one of Kurosawa’s masterpieces, must be understood within its historical and cultural contexts. We all feared this moment—not for ourselves, which would have been pointless, but for our friends. Everything seems black. He is the embodiment of the modern-day hero, without great intelligence, physical strength, or supernatural ability. camera pans up to a commendation he was awarded after 25 years at his post.It I went to the movie because it was playing in a campus film series and only cost a quarter. These interactions, though stimulating, serve to expose the reality of Watanabe’s inner-isolation and separation from those in proximity to him.Participating in the amusement of pachinko, alcohol, dance, and the opposite sex, may prove to Watanabe that he is not alone in his struggle for meaning. Japan In other words, [quickly rising from his seat across from her and sitting next to her, cornering her] in other words, why are you so incredibly alive? Each of these steps is a lesson unto itself. In approaching death, he becomes alive.Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:Takashi Shimura is so flawless that watching him in