Film Club: Ikiru

In Japanese with English subtitles
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Rated: R for language, nudity, some violence
Runtime: 143 minutes
Cast: Britta Barnes, Peter Gonzales Falcon, Fiona Florence
The film examines the struggles of a terminally ill Tokyo bureaucrat and his final quest for meaning. The screenplay was partly inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
One of the greatest achievements by Akira Kurosawa, “Ikiru” shows the director at his most compassionate—affirming life through an explora­tion of death. Takashi Shimura beautifully portrays Kanji Watanabe, an aging bureaucrat with stomach cancer who is impelled to find meaning in his final days. Presented in a radically conceived two-­part structure and shot with a perceptive, humanistic clarity of vision, “Ikiru” is a multifaceted look at what it means to be alive.