Walking Kurosawa's Road: Ikiru

The inability to write about the films of Akira Kurosawa to my satisfaction led me to to take a different path: start at the beginning, take each film in sequence, one after the other, and watch the progression of the man from film-maker to Master. I'm hoping I can write more intelligently and more knowledgeably about his work by, step by step, Walking Kurosawa's Road.


Ikiru (aka "To Live" aka 生きる)(Akira Kurosawa, 1952) For those who've seen more than just Akira Kurosawa's samurai films, this is the one that is most often cited as his crowning achievement.

Hard to argue.

Short on visual majesty, except in the sort of composition and eye for detail that Kurosawa brought to every film, with very little of what one would call "action," and inspired by the director's love for Russian Literature, Ikiru tells the story of a simple bureaucrat, a paper-shuffler, "a walking corpse," as the narrator describes "the protagonist." 

Set in contemporary Japan, it follows Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura), a Kainan civil servant (with the uninspiring title of "Section Chief of Public Affairs") who has worked for the same department for 30 years and who (we are told) has been "dead for twenty years"—that's around the time his last white paper on steps to improve efficiency in his department was summarily dismissed by his "higher-ups".

We see a typical day at his office. Kanji rubber-stamping papers with barely a glance, the same way that he handles a request from Sakai (Haruo Tanaka) about the concerns of the Kuroe Women's Association—they want to drain a local cess-pool and create a children's park on the site, eliminating a health hazard and providing a benefit for Japan's version of "baby-boomers." Kanji basically runner-stamps them, sending them off to Public Works without any sort of entree or recommendation, where the mothers go through an all-day session of bureaucracy runarounds only to end up exactly where they started. 

Only when they return to his desk, Kanji is not there—he has uncharacteristically taken time off from his duties to go to the physician's office. He has certain symptoms—pains—which a fellow patient in the waiting room tells him could be stomach cancer, which is a death sentence. But (he's informed), the doctors, who wouldn't be able to treat the cancer, will tell him that it's merely a mild ulcer, there's no need to operate, and to eat whatever he wants (as long as it's easy to digest). The patient tells him that is his experience, and when Kanji is called to the doctor's office, his worst fears are answered. He's told he has a mild ulcer, there's no need to operate, and he can eat anything he wants (as long as it's easy to digest). That patient was telling the truth; the doctors will lie. His diagnosis is good news; it is a death sentence. The doctors can only watch as their cheery "spin" fills Kanji with despair. They know he is suffering, but they go on with their charade. That is how things are done, you see. To deviate from it might be disastrous.

At the doctor's office, Kanji has been given a taste of his own medicine and it is a bitter pill. He knows he has less than a year to live, but he has no idea how. Living has become a habit, something he has squandered, and, in his grief, he takes things to excess. "What would you do," his doctor asks his team after he's left "if you had only six moths to live?" Kanji staggers home, oblivious to the world, only to hear his son and his new wife arrive home, speculating on buying a new home with his money, and he recalls himself as a widower, raising the boy himself, the sacrifices, and can only cry himself to sleep.

The next day, he is not at work, nor is he for the next five days—¥50,000 has been taken out of his account—but no one can find him. It turns out he's been drowning his sorrows, pretty stupid for a man with stomach cancer, but the sake gives him oblivion and oblivion takes away the thoughts in his head—of his wasted life, his contemplation of suicide and his cowardice for not doing it. He blurts all this to a writer "of second-rate fiction" who finds Kanji's existential struggle romantic and vows to help him start living by taking him to pachinko parlors, cabarets, dance-halls and strip-joints, but it is all just drunken activity that only makes him feel worse. He is running in place and getting nowhere.

Still recovering from his night's activities with the writer, he has a chance encounter with a co-worker (Miki Odagiri) who is overjoyed to see him. Feeling stifled by the job at Public Affairs, she was been wanting to quit but has needed his permission signed to begin work at a new job making children's toys. Watanabe takes her to his house to provide the needed seal for her petition, but the girl's presence makes the old man's son think that his father is foolishly stepping out with a younger woman, risking his inheritance. But, Watanabe, feeling isolated and alone, is merely clinging to her for her vitality and energy. She makes him laugh and ultimately inspires him to start a new path...in the same place where he began, where he feels he's been wasting his life for the last 30 years. But, that will all change.

At this point, Kurosawa changes the strict timeline he's been following and moves forward five months in the story. Watanabe is dead and at his memorial, his family and past employees gather in remembrance. Even the Deputy Mayor is there. The children's park has been built, which the Deputy Mayor is only too proud to take credit for, dismissing Watanabe's efforts. But, a grateful appearance at the wake by the Kuroe Women's Association seems to belie that, and Watanabe's co-workers, perhaps inspired by the generous rounds of warm sake, begin to swap stories of Watanabe's zeal in his last few months, uncharacteristically bending rules, hounding department heads and getting the park built.

Watanabe at his lowest...and his highest.

"But I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.

To the point of even having his life threatened by local pimps who'd rather use the designated park-area for their own purposes. When they threaten retribution, he only looks at them with an ironic smile, at the joke only he can appreciate. By the end of the movie, the characters begin to appreciate the value of one, solitary life, however humble, however stifled. Appreciate it, but in a bureaucracy, maybe not inspired by it. Maybe.

 

But, the park is there. And it will be well-used, as Watanabe himself used it. No further marker is needed.

Ikiru is a quieter, less celebratory—and less dependent on angels, certainly—cousin to It's a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Carol (any of them). All tread a journey through darkness and the sorrow of the soul to emerge, at their respective ends, to the light and a celebration of life. It's why I offer this one for Christmas. As a sort of gift.

I can't recommend this one highly enough. I borrowed this from the Library and kept it for two months, revisiting it, picking details out of it, admiring how it blended tragedy and comedy, satire and spiritualism. If there was one Kurosawa film that I could choose in his entire work that I could view over and over again, it would be this lovely little miracle of a film.

It was remade (as, it seems, all of Kuosawa's films must) in 2022 as the quite decent British film, Living.

Kainan City Hall

 

Walking Kurosawa's Road: One Wonderful Sunday

The inability to write about the films of Akira Kurosawa to my satisfaction led me to to take a different path: start at the beginning, take each film in sequence, one after the other, and watch the progression of the man from film-maker to Master. I'm hoping I can write more intelligently and more knowledgeably about his work by, step by step, Walking Kurosawa's Road.

One Wonderful Sunday (aka 素晴らしき日曜日 Subarashiki Nichiyōbi)(1947) 35 yen. That's all that one young lovers, Yuzo and Masako (Isao Numasaki and Chieko Nakakita) have to spend on their weekly Tokyo sojourn, where they meet to spend time with each other and away from their humdrum jobs that don't pay much more than their rent money. It would be cause for celebration, but they are constantly surrounded by limitations and disappointments. For young lovers, 35 yen doesn't buy much of dreams.

It is the time of American occupation and Westernization is everywhere—in the fashion, in the music, and the kids are playing stick-ball in the street. Western classical music is playing at concerts (and director Kurosawa uses it on the soundtrack), and nightclubs have the same feel and aesthetic of ones in New York (upstairs, anyway).

But, times are hard. Yuzo and Masako have dreams. But, everything they encounter on this Sunday wakes them up to reality. They want to get married, but they can't because they can't afford to, but, on a whim, go house-shopping. A new building is nice but is far out of their price range. More affordable is a dingy interior apartment with no windows which the former tenant, who is glad to leave, doesn't even recommend. Masako tours the places with hope, but Yuzo becomes more discouraged, despite her efforts to cheer him up. 

He'll stay that way until they see a handful of kids playing stick-ball in the streets, the kids imitating their favorite players. Yuzo asks to take a turn batting, but a solid hit manages to crash into a bakery, smashing sweet rolls that the baker insists they buy—even if he offers a discount. They split the food between themselves and the kids, and head for the zoo, but the caged animals only depresses Yuzo and reminds him of his own situation. He has a brainstorm: an Army buddy of his has opened a snazzy nightclub-restaurant and Yuzo decides to take Masako to show off the place and maybe impress her—and maybe get a job there.

The owner won't even see him; Yuzo is consigned to a backroom which he shares with a black marketer, who tells him the owner won't even see him and probably will buy him off with a drink and maybe some cash. That's exactly what happens, but Yuzo is too proud to take the money. But, he doesn't get a job, either.

The two decide to go to a concert—Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony," significantly—they have just enough money to afford general seating tickets. But, while they're waiting in line, scalpers buy up all the cheaper general tickets, leaving only the more expensive seats...which they can't afford for both of them. Yuzo challenges the scalpers and gets beaten up for his outrage. The rage and humiliation he feels makes him want to break off the date and go back to his apartment. Masako follows him seeking to console him. But, Yuzo feels such a loss of face that he turns on Masako, asserting himself physically, which makes her feel betrayed and fearful and she runs out of the apartment, leaving Yuzo alone.

She eventually comes back and all Yuzo can do is apologize to her for his behavior. For him, it's all or nothing. But Masako's more nuanced approach to life sways him to go out with her again to have tea with their remaining funds. They can just afford it...until they get the bill. What they've ordered is more expensive and they can't afford it. Yuzo barters his coat to make the difference.

But, that experience inspires him. He fantasizes with Masako that they will start their own tea shop and restaurant, with good food "for the masses" with no hidden fees and quality. He has learned to take a bad experience and turn it into something positive, a trait that inspires a final act in which the rules of reality are broken, and, like Kurosawa does in the film, makes the most out of a situation that on the surface seems limiting, but by exploiting the potential and using the means available with imagination, turns into something that can only be described as "magical."

One Wonderful Sunday is a fine example of making the best of limited means. At the time before the film's production, Toho Studios had suffered from a walkout of its top actors who'd left to form their own production company. Toho began a search for new actors and, unsure of the box office potential of films without known stars, lowered the budgets of potential films to avoid risking disaster at the box office. Kurosawa, with his co-script-writer Keinosuki Uekusa, a childhood friend, took a page from the post-war Italian films (which would be called "neo-realist" once the scholars got hold of them) and filmed on location with hidden cameras and the simplest of stories with a small roster of characters. The limited means kept the film costs low along with the risks and allowed Toho to continue operating with contemporary, personal films.

Kurosawa always favored location work, using natural environments and incorporating it in the fabric of the story-telling, letting Nature inform and even comment on the story. Here, the two lovers are subject to rainstorms making them take cover, dousing their hopes, and the very wind becomes mystical in the finale.

You work with what you have, and Kurosawa in the finale has the two lovers reach a crisis point between hope and despair and as Kurosawa has exhausted every element—the two lovers, the empty orchestra shell they visit, and the bleak and lonely wind that blows through it—he turns to the last participant in the process, the audience, in much the same way as Peter Pan asks the audience of the theater-piece to clap to save the life of Tinkerbelle. That moment is a bit twee—it is for children's benefit, after all—but in Kurosawa's working, it is an act of desperation, as he moves the camera forward, isolating Masako as she turns to address the audience:

"Ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause! Please find it in your hearts to cheer him one! Please! There are so many poor young lovers like us in this world. Please give us all a big hand. We're freezing in the cold winds of this world. Do it for poor young lovers everywhere. Please cheer us on. Please help us dream beautiful dreams. Please, a round of applause. Please. Please applaud. Please! All of you!"

Kurosawa was distressed that audiences in Japan did not clap. They did in France, though, when the film made its way to the City of Lovers, and the film ends with Schubert's sublime Symphony No. 8, considered the first of the "Romantic" symphonies, but has been hung with the mantle of "Unfinished." And on those notes, Kurosawa leaves the lovers with their story unresolved.

It's a beautiful film, small in scope, and with no pageantry at all, but full of risk and feeling and a certain amount of desperation both in its story and in its making.

I hope, given the opportunity, I would have applauded.