Quick recap: A bureaucrat finds out he has terminal cancer and realizes how much of his life he has wasted.

Fun (?) fact: Similar to Amarcord, I assumed the title was the name of the main character. It is not, however. Ikiru is a Japanese word meaning ‘to live’.

My thoughts: Ikiru is such a downer of a movie ,yet I felt so motivated and inspired by the end of it. Kanji Watanabe, played by Takashi Shimura, is just about the saddest person I have seen in film ever. I felt sorry for him as he sat through his boring desk job but once he got the cancer diagnosis, he just became pitiful.

The best part of the movie for me is that I never knew what direction it would take. There was some humor in the first few scenes that made me wonder if the diagnosis was a mistake and maybe Kanji could just learn a lesson and live for a very long time. And then he meets a man who teaches him how to spend money frivolously as well as a former coworker who shows him how to have a nightlife. At this point I expected Kanji to realize that family was most important or maybe realize that life should be enjoyed daily. But no, nothing of substance ever materializes and I’m left to watch Kanji continue to suffer.

AND THEN KANJI DIES WITH AN HOUR LEFT INTO THE MOVIE

I absolutely wasn’t expecting this. Where was the life lesson? Where was the grieving son who finally reunited with his father? Instead, the wake is attended by a few family members, bureaucrats, and high ranking government officials. Throughout several flashbacks, which I thought were very creatively done, the friends and family members find out that Kanji knew he was dying yet didn’t broadcast it to the world. Instead, he spent his final months helping to transform a sewage dump into a nice little park for kids to play in. As it usually goes, though, his work is mostly ignored until he is dead and everyone is able to come together and realize how good of a person he was.It was such a sweet way to end the movie, knowing that Kanji chose to help however he could and without any expectation of reward. The final scene recounts how he actually died in the park that he helped create. It’s such a beautiful scene to see Kanji swinging on the play set and singing a song about not wasting any moment. The snow is falling all around him, he knows he doesn’t have much time left and he is completely at peace.

Final review: 5/5. I didn’t get into it much but this movie is also beautiful, every single scene.

Up next: Tabu