Ikiru

Just like, Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, Kurosawa’s Ikiru is a film about life. Constantly complex and thought-provoking, although simple at the same time; it tells a story about life’s limits, how we perceive life and the fact that life is short and not to be wasted. Of all of films Kurosawa made, this is probably the one movie that works perfectly on an universal level, because at its core it is about one of the basic truths of life- death.

In its starch and unforgiving black-and-white form the movie records the time of one man’s life in such a beautiful and yes, colorful way, that by the time the final moments of the film play out, it will be very hard for anybody not to be touched. The film details the existential struggle of one ordinary man in his desperate search for purpose.

Ikiru is a film that expresses itself in two separate parts. The first half is the exploration of a bitter man’s death and the second half is an affirmation of life provided through the awareness of mortality, recalled by those whom he knew best.

I give it 9/10. What about you?