Ikiru

Many critics cite this deeply affecting piece of humanist cinema as one of the great Kurosawa’s pinnacle achievements. A low-key gendai-geki (film of contemporary life) dating from the same period that produced the celebrated historical dramas Rashomon and Seven Samurai, Ikiru features Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura as Watanabe, a hidebound minor government official. Discovering that he has but a few months to live, Watanabe realizes that he has accomplished nothing of significance in his time on earth, and so sets out to do something that will give his life a meaning. “An intensely moving film . . . elegiac and sometimes quirkishly funny in the manner of Kurosawa’s elective model, John Ford. Shimura is superb in the central role” (Tom Milne). “Kurosawa's best work is completely sui generis, drawing upon individual genius such as few filmmakers in the history of world cinema have. Rashomon, Ikiru, and I Live in Fear defy classification and are stunning in their originality of style, theme and setting” (David Desser). “Extremely powerful . . . Modern Japan has never been so fully exposed as in this film” (Donald Richie). “Kurosawa's two greatest films are Ikiru and Seven Samurai” (Audie Bock). B&W, 35mm, in Japanese with English subtitles. 143 mins.