Ikiru (1952)

Ikiru is just a masterpiece, maybe one of Kurosawa's absolute best.

Samuel Scott54 said:Man, Ikiru is just a masterpiece... easily one of the best from Kurosawa.

Don't hold back on the details! I'd love to hear more about what you thought... wouldn't mind a deep dive if you're feeling it! 👍

The whole movie really hit me hard. It’s such a simple story, yet so incredibly moving—it follows this man trying to find purpose in life only when he realizes how quickly it's slipping away.

I can definitely see some parallels here with Italian Neorealism, like the stuff from Umberto D. The films just feel like they come from the same soul.

I guess Kurosawa is at his absolute best when he isn't doing those samurai epics. Besides Ikiru, he did Stray Dog (Nora Ina), which is a super solid noir crime flick, and then there's I Live in Fear, that drama about an industrialist where you barely even recognize Mifune. Oh, and Quiet Duel with Mifune too... they're all the kind of movies that really stick with you and make you think.

A total masterpiece. Everything is perfectly paced, and the story hits you right in the gut. Those moments where he’s just desperately searching for purpose—especially when his son attacks him and he just takes it—are incredibly heavy. Honestly, this movie might actually hold up even better today than it did years ago. And judging by that final scene, it looks like everything is just heading back to the way it always was.

The conversations with Toyo or that younger woman who just loved life were fantastic.

I'm right there with you on this. It honestly would have been much more impactful if they hadn't leaned into that heavy-handed sentimentality at the very end when everyone starts realizing just how great he actually was. For me, though, that scene involving his son was genuinely heartbreaking...

A film by the master Akira Kurosawa can never disappoint. That opening scene is honestly hilarious because it hits way too close to home regarding the reality we deal with here in America. There are these brilliant moments highlighting the sheer futility of the work
performed by entire bureaucracies and endless red tape. It’s beautiful in its own way—like when he can't even quit because his boss is out for a few days and there’s nobody available to stamp the paperwork. When he reflects with such heavy nostalgia, wondering what he actually accomplished in that office over thirty years, it really drives home the emptiness of a life wasted on bureaucratic paperwork.

The movie is essentially a beautiful ode to life itself. It presents the story of a man who spent thirty years living in the shadows, barely having lived at all—as the narrator points out. He wants to finally live, to indulge in whims he never allowed himself, only to slowly realize that chasing impulses isn't the point of existence either; carousing with women doesn't fulfill you. He learns that true living comes from giving back and positively impacting others. That’s beautiful. The scene on the park swing while he sings is deeply melancholic, incredibly sad, and just stunning.

I do have a few gripes with the film. For one, the relationship with his son feels unresolved. The argument the son starts when the father tries to open up shouldn't be enough to shut down any further attempts at communication. Then there's the young colleague he starts a relationship with—it feels more like a father-daughter dynamic—but once he opens up, she just vanishes from the film. It felt a bit rushed and poorly handled.

I love how he weaves the funeral together with the past and present through the stories people tell about him, and how he gave everything in those final months to build that park. I'm not a technical critic, but the execution is masterful. That shot on the swings paired with the snow is one of the most striking cinematic images ever, especially with that gorgeous soundtrack.

Despite those flaws, this is a masterpiece. It’s exactly what I love: a melancholic, somber film that celebrates life. It isn't depressing; it’s inspiring.

What strikes me most about this film is how its themes remain so incredibly relevant, despite being such a classic. It captures that universal sense of drifting through life, stuck in a monotonous grind where you feel there’s no real room for advancement or any tangible sense of achievement. You go through the motions, assuming you’ll eventually reach a peaceful old age, never once considering that some sudden, fatal illness might cut everything short long before you hit eighty. Even your own children seem more concerned about you becoming a burden than actually understanding the weight of your struggles. It’s only when you’re suddenly faced with the reality of your own mortality that you finally start to truly value the life you've lived.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I honestly find my issues with Kurosawa a bit tedious... even when he’s doing those massive epics like Seven Samurai, or his later stuff like Ran and some of the others. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Rashomon! That one is just fantastic (I actually have the book at home).

Also, Ikiru reminds me a little bit of Ozu. It’s not really his usual thing to focus on the lives of ordinary people, since Kurosawa is mostly famous for those epic heroes, samurai, and all that American history and stuff...

It doesn't grab me that much either, but what really keeps me hooked is the technical side: the camera work, the cinematography, the editing, how they handle interiors versus exteriors. Okay, sure, there are clear themes too: family life, showing bureaucrats through their jobs (and that general attitude toward bureaucracy), plus the personal side and, obviously—death, or rather, the meaning of life.

I think it’s a beautiful story, but it just doesn't quite hit home for me right now. Still, experience tells me I might have a totally different take on it if I catch it again sometime in the future...

Steven Newman50 said:No, my experience tells me he might end up having a completely different impression of it if he decides to revisit it later on...

You think that’s going to happen once you finally mature? Don't hold your breath; reaching 27 doesn't mean you've actually grown up, that's pretty much the limit...

Mark Cruz15 said:You think you'll feel differently once you actually grow up? Don't hold your breath. If you haven't hit your stride by 27, you're pretty much stuck how you are.

Well, damn... looks like I'm in for a lifetime of being bored then... ☕

The theme might be a cliché, but it hits a raw nerve. It reflects exactly where we are right now—everyone is constantly grinding, wasting energy and losing their minds over things that don't even matter. We all act like we have forever, ignoring the fact that none of us knows when our clock is actually going to run out. It’s that old, tired saying about not knowing what you have until it’s gone, but it’s true. We trivialize everything while we have it, thinking we understand its value, only to realize too late how much we messed up. Look at the current state of things; it shows just how much of a privilege it is to grab coffee with friends, maintain social ties, or even just share a movie experience with a room full of strangers. Those small moments are what actually make life worth living.

As for the movie itself, it works because it's about an ordinary guy—someone anyone could be. That’s the beauty of it. I don't find Akira Kurosawa boring, and honestly, this film feels even better on a second viewing, perhaps because I'm watching it through a different lens now. That scene with the swing? One of the best sequences in cinematic history. Truly masterfully done.

Photography is easily one of the most gorgeous parts of cinema, and I totally agree—that swing scene is just stunning. But honestly? The way this movie handles its philosophy on that subject... it doesn't quite click for me like it does in other films. That’s just my take, though! It’s definitely a personal preference, and it doesn't change my respect for the movie or how much it matters.

I can't stop thinking about that one specific scene where they're all crowded into some dusty old saloon... there's a guy playing the upright piano, or whatever you call that instrument they lean against the wall in those classic Westerns. He's just playing away, surrounded by a few folks, and then you see his reflection caught in a mirror on the ceiling.

It’s basically a mix of neorealism, Kafka, and Rashomon. But here’s the kicker—while Rashomon relies on four different perspectives from four different people, the lead guy here doesn't even have his own story. He isn't even the subject. In the first act, he just gets caught up by this writer—portrayed as your typical stereotype... I'm talking about the "I-novel"—that whole raw, confessional style where the author basically spills their guts about their own life. It’s intense, messy, and honestly? A bit much sometimes. But that's the point. It’s a novelist—heavy on that confessional tone and those intense autobiographical vibes—trying to drag a Faustian journey through a total "dark night of the soul." But here's the kicker: since the protagonist lacks any actual subjectivity, he’s got nothing to confess. So, he just tosses him aside. Then you’ve got this Watanabe-esque attempt to connect with a female coworker, but he doesn't understand her at all. It’s just a failed attempt at building an identity. Total miss.

This movie hits you with two massive reality checks. First, there’s that gut punch for Watanabe—realizing he’s actually going to die after living such a plain, forgettable life. Then there’s the second shock for the audience. You realize Watanabe is already gone. Even though we basically know he's a dead man walking from the very first frame, the Kurosawa-esque protagonist just... vanishes from the screen about two-thirds of the way through. It flies in the face of everything you expect—usually, the story ends right when the character's life does. But hey, death doesn't care about your narrative arcs—it catches everyone off guard.

It’s got this expressionist, Kafkaesque vibe—you could even call it pretty damn unique. Ghost stories—man, they hit different when you actually stop treating them like cheap jump scares and start looking at the soul of the thing. Most modern horror is just loud noises and shaky cams, but real chills? That comes from the atmosphere. It’s that lingering dread that stays in your gut long after the credits roll. Think about the classics—the stuff that actually sticks with you because it understands how to build tension without holding your hand through every single frame. Real horror isn't about what jumps out of the closet; it's about the feeling that something is watching you from the corner of the room while you're just trying to exist. Simple, but effective. So we’re talking about the guy who nearly drowned as a kid—parents nowhere to be found to pull him out. After that trauma, he spends his entire life stuck in this mental fog, basically living like a mummy. Shimura plays him with this absolute, hollowed-out stillness, and man, he nails it perfectly. Hands down one of the Kurosawa-esque peaks. 👍

Dennis Martin6 said:'dark night of the soul'

I guess this is probably the most frequent theme in Akira Kurosawa's entire body of work. Even back in "Sanshiro Sugata," you see that key motif of a lotus rising out of a muddy pond, which just keeps showing up in different forms later on. In "Drunken Angel," that filth is shown as literal moral sludge in the middle of the city—paired with the whole physical sickness/tuberculosis thing—that the rest of society just orbits. I think the main idea there is health versus purification.

Then you have "Rashomon," which is like a Dante-esque descent into a forest of immorality and illusions where you can barely catch a glimpse of the sun or truth through the trees. Or "Ikiru," with that illusory bureaucratic world that acts like there's order and productivity when really nothing is being achieved. In "High and Low," the lead gets ripped out of his hermetically sealed bubble and goes through a dark night of the soul wandering through the slums, eventually hitting some kind of satori when he sees his reflection and the villain's reflection overlap in the glass. I think "Stray Dog" ends with a similar kind of non-dualism, maybe with that scene where the cop and the thief are rolling around in the mud, IIRC.

Kurosawa also sometimes touches on the Westernization of America as a core part of this world of illusions (like that materialistic, "Westernized" son and his wife in "Ikiru"). He seems to pretty much hate technological progress, too. That’s why in "Dreams," the final rural commune surrounded by flowers feels like spiritual purification after those last few dreams depicting nuclear disasters and the collapse of developed societies. You also see the depiction of firearms in "Yojimbo" and "Ran," where better tech just means more efficient slaughter and sharper social stratification.

"Throne of Blood" and "Ran" show this eternal wandering through a world of illusions, so they're probably his most pessimistic films. "Ran" is very blunt about it, ending with that image of a blind man walking along the edge of a cliff. "The Lower Depths" and "The Hidden Fortress" feel like opposites. THS was his first film in wide TohoScope format, so it deals with adventure and exploring a big, open world, which stands in contrast to the previous TLD—that suffocating, theatrical film in a "boxy" format about sin, hopelessness, and the impossibility of enlightenment or redemption.

ruggedbadger2 said:... and he especially hates technological progress...

—but in Ikiru, technology is actually what makes Watanabe-esque planning possible. 😉

Look, everything else you're saying relies on some pretty shady interpretations and forced connections. The real issue is that Akira Kurosawa's films are way too distinct from one another to just strip away the context and expect it to work. Take the forest in Rashomon—it isn't some Dante-esque metaphor for immorality or illusion. It’s about the complexity of the human mind, according to Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto—basically a space that blends vertical and horizontal formal elements (you see the dominance shift between the scenes at the gate and the trial scenes). That’s a much more solid argument, especially since Pop mentions the city of Kyoto at the start, not some forest acting as a literal hell on earth.
The grit in Drunken Angel and Sanshiro Sugata comes from totally different places—one was shot right after the war during the American occupation, while the other wasn't. Period.

Dennis Martin6 said:In *Ikiru*, it feels like modern technology is exactly what finally makes a Watanabe-esque plan actually work. 😉

His take was pretty blunt: "All the tech progress we've seen over the last few years has really just taught people how to kill one another faster and more efficiently."
Maybe back in the early 1950s, he still believed technology could actually be used for noble purposes. I guess it wasn't until around the time of Dersu uzao that he started getting bitter about the whole thing.

Dennis Martin6 said:I guess you could say the forest in Rashomon isn't really about some Dante-esque immorality or a grand illusion. It’s more like what Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto argues—it represents the sheer complexity of the human mind. It acts as this space that blends vertical elements, which dominate those scenes right in front of the gate, with the horizontal elements seen during the trial sequences. That feels like a much more convincing take to me, especially when you consider that at the start, Pop mentions the city of New York rather than the forest when discussing hell on earth.

I don't quite recall what Pop says about Kyoto, but I don't think the forest is meant to symbolize hell on earth. It feels more like a crossroads where one decides whether to stay on the right path or lose it. It’s a bit different from how Dante uses the woods to represent our lowest, most shameful impulses. In Rashomon, that setting seems to be more about what Akira Kurosawa calls the "living sands of the ego."

ruggedbadger2 said:Maybe back in the early '50s he still believed technology could actually be used for something noble—but honestly? It looks like he didn't turn bitter about that stuff until somewhere around the time he made Dersu uzao.

Look, let's be real—he probably had a totally conflicted relationship with technology, just like pretty much everyone else. You can see it clearly enough in his movies.

ruggedbadger2 said:I can't quite recall what pop says about Kyoto, but the forest isn't exactly some earthly hellscape—it’s more like a crossroads where you decide if you're staying on the right path. It's not like Dante, where the woods represent all those low-life, shameful human impulses. In Rashomon, it’s more like that "living sand of the ego" thing Kurosawa talks about.

So what’s the "right path" in Rashomon even supposed to be? If they went off course, that implies they were actually on the right track to begin with—makes sense, doesn't it? And honestly, what does Dante have to do with this movie? It’s based on Akutagawa’s stories, so if you're gonna interpret it, stick to the source material. The forest in Rashomon isn't some metaphor for the Divine Comedy—that's just common sense.

Dennis Martin6 said:but what actually counts as the "right path" in Rashomon? if they went astray, then they had to have been on the right path before that. and what does Dante have to do with the movie? it was made based on Akutagawa's stories, so maybe include him in the interpretation instead. the forest in Rashomon doesn't really mean the same thing as it does in Dante's work, that seems pretty obvious.

The right path is truth, obviously. That famous shot where you can barely see the sun through the thick canopy perfectly captures the Kurosawa-esque idea of "shifting sands of the ego," where human selfishness just blocks out goodness and truth. You don't see the sun in its full glory until the end, once humanity finds some kind of redemption through the woodcutter's choice.

The reason I brought up Dante is because a dark forest is a symbol specifically tied to him (just like you mentioned Faust).

Besides, the Divine Comedy and Rashomon actually follow a very similar arc—after getting lost in a dark woods, the human spirit first descends into the minds of sinners (Hell/Judgment), then contemplates its own flaws (Purgatory/the conversation under the crumbling city gates), and finally reaches salvation (Heaven/the adoption of the baby).

ruggedbadger2 said:Truth is the only way, obviously.

So what’s actually "true" in Rashomon?

ruggedbadger2 said:The only reason I brought up Dante is because that dark forest thing is his whole vibe—just like how you tied that Faust stuff to your point.

Look, I brought up Faust because he's literally written into the script. And for the record—there’s zero mention of Dante in Rashomon. ☕

ruggedbadger2 said:Plus, if you look at the *Divine Comedy* and *Rashomon*, the arcs are basically identical—you get lost in some dark woods, your soul dives headfirst into the minds of sinners (Hell/Judgment), then you spend time chewing on your own flaws (Purgatory/that talk under the crumbling city gates), before finally hitting salvation (Heaven/adopting a baby). It's the same damn pattern.

Anyone got a movie recommendation that actually hits? Looking for something decent. Nah. Christian allegory? Please. 😁

I mean, I don't even know what to tell you... It’s honestly wild to try and force some Christian ontology onto a story set in feudal Japan—especially since that whole framework isn't even mentioned in the book or the movie. Akutagawa describes Kyoto as this wrecked-up place constantly getting hammered by natural disasters, and then Kurosawa’s film just cranks that up a notch by adding the human element—bandits, looters, all that mess. In the movie, Kyoto is a much worse place than any forest could ever be, but you don't seem to remember that, damn. And it's not even a "dark" forest. Quite the opposite—it’s full of light filtering through the leaves, hitting the characters like some black-and-white pattern, making them look even more cinematic.

There’s no heaven, hell, purgatory, sinners, or salvation in Rashomon—it just isn't that kind of movie.