“All these 30 years - what have I been doing there? I can't remember no matter how I try. All I remember - is just being busy - and even then I was bored.”

Just like I imagine for most people, my first ever Kurosawa film that I ever watched was Seven Samurai, and I have to be honest, while I highly respected it for its revolutionary place in cinema, my actual enjoyment of it was fairly low (it is definitely due for a rewatch). I decided that for my next Kurosawa watch, I was going to choose a movie that was perhaps a bit of a safer bet, as films with heavy emotional themes often hit with me the most. Ikiru not only met my expectations, but very much surpassed them in every way.

To be more specific on what I was expecting out of this film, I had a feeling it was going to be very similar to Grave of the Fireflies, one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. Grave of the Fireflies is extremely emotionally heavy, and even though I consider it to be a masterpiece, it still mainly just serves to be a depressing anti-war film, and not a ton else. However, while Ikiru can be a pretty depressing watch due to what the story is about, being a guy in his final months after being diagnosed with cancer, it also has a lot more to it than just that.

What really stood out to me was how this film can relate to quite literally everyone. Yeah, like I said, it’s about a guy with cancer, but at its deepest core, it's about how to make our lives worthwhile and worth it. Our main character, Kanji Watanabe, has lived a quite boring and unremarkable life over the last thirty years at the time that the story takes place. Once he is officially diagnosed, he realizes just how disappointed he is with what he has accomplished, even though he had reasons for living the way he did. He can’t seem to find his purpose in life, and that’s when the main emotional core of the story starts to unfold.

Throughout a big portion of the runtime, Watanabe decides to follow this young woman who also worked at the same place he did, and sees the joy that she has in life as she seeks to do bigger things. Because of this, Watanabe seeks to find what it is he wants to do to get that spirit back inside of him again, and he eventually finds this through coming up with the idea to build a children’s playground. Despite his illness, he goes out of his way to always be kind and accomplish this goal without expecting anything in return. This is for his own sake.

Takashi Shimura, the main actor who portrays Watanabe, gives an absolutely fantastic performance as him as well. What impressed me the most is what he does with his eyes, which might sound weird, but hear me out. Throughout the majority of the film, you see just how desperate and hopeless Watanabe truly is simply by the constant look he has in his eyes. It’s a look that pretty much signifies how empty he feels inside, and it’s honestly probably what makes everything hit with so much impact.

Adding onto that selflessness of not expecting anything in return that I talked about just a second ago, Watanabe is also just one of those characters who is practically impossible not to root for. He is mistreated and taken advantage of numerous times, and yet, he never fights back or complains about his circumstances. This could sound like I’m describing a pathetic character, but that’s not the case. Despite these challenges, Watanabe pushes through and continues to seek out something to feel accomplished, making him even more of a compelling character. Simply having a character with such circumstances as Watanabe would, in and of itself, make for a character you root for, but Akira Kurosawa and his team of writers went the extra mile.

There is also a bit of a surprise in the last fifty minutes or so of the story, or rather, how the story is told, and it was definitely something that I think added more emotional power overall. It kind of comes as a bit of a shock at first, but once the movie continues, it makes perfect sense that the story was written this way. When it comes to the ending, it's pretty much what you might expect, but it hits every bit as hard as you could hope for, nonetheless.

This is definitely a film I see myself enjoying even more on my next viewing. Absolutely zero criticisms.