To live (film, 1952)

Kanji Watanabe, head of the city government department, discovers that he has stomach cancer and does not have long to live, a maximum of a year. He tries to tell this to his son, but he never tells, instead he only makes sure that he is actually very lonely and estranged from his own son. Kanji suddenly realizes that his life was empty, boring and worthless, wasted on stupid work, in which he was constantly busy with something for 30 years. During these 30 years, Kanji did not miss a single working day, but the next day he does not come to work. Watanabe withdraws money accumulated during this time and leaves on Tokyo night. He thinks a lot about his life. In the bar, he meets the poet who has descended and puts all his soul to him. Together they roam the city and spend money in taverns and restaurants. When Kanji returns home, he is rebuked by a misunderstood son. Later on the way, he meets a girl who intends to resign from the office, where he works as a boss, because she does not want to stay there anymore. Kanji stamps her resignation papers, but decides to invite her to spend time with him. He notices in her a strong passion for life. The fact that she now works in a factory for the manufacture of children's toys, pushes him to an unexpected goal in life. Trying to resist the whole system and the bureaucracy in which he worked for 30 years of his life, through all the humiliations and even threats to life, he is trying to push through the paperwork necessary for the construction of a playground. Watanabe is in a hurry to do something really before his death.

• Takashi Shimura - Kanji Watanabe
• Xinichi Himori - Kimura
• Haruo Tanaka - Sakai
• Minoru Chiaki - Noguchi
• Miki Odagiri - Toy Odagiri
• Bokuzen Hidari - Ohara
• Nobuo Kaneko - Mitsuo Watanabe, son of Kanji
• Kyoko Seki - Kazue, Mitsuo's wife
• Yunosuke Ito - writer
• Makoto Kobori - Kiichi Watanabe, Kanji Brother

• 1953 - three Mainity awards : best film (Akira Kurosawa), best script (Shinobu Hashimoto, Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni), best sound recording (Fumio Yanoguchi)
• 1953 - Golden Wolf prize of the Bucharest Film Festival
• 1954 - Special prize of the Berlin Senate, as well as a nomination for the Golden Bear prize of the Berlin Film Festival
• 1960 - BAFTA Award nomination for Best Foreign Actor ( Takashi Shimura )

In the film, two parts can be distinguished that differ in the nature of the narrative. In the first half of the film in direct sequence tells about the actions of the protagonist after he learned about his illness. The second part shows the hero’s commemoration, in which his colleagues share their thoughts on the last months of the deceased’s life. From these fragmentary memories, the viewer learns about Watanabe’s activities in building a playground. Both parts are preceded by an off-screen text, which first introduces the viewer to the hero, and then reports that he died. According to film critic Robin Wood ^[4] :

His [film] reputation was originally based on the seriousness of his theme (how does a person who has only a few months left to find the meaning of life?), His humanism (Kurosawa’s commitment to individual heroism, revealed in an apparently insignificant and unremarkable person), his social criticism (satire to bureaucracy) and the strength and directness of his emotional appeal ... "Coarse-hewn" geometry, the use of the narrator, a sharp gap in the narrative and often torn editing together lead to a strong sense of distant STI. What is truly remarkable in Kurosawa's film “Living” and key to the “highlight” is the way in which this remoteness is confronted with equally strong emotional rhetoric, causing a constant tension between involvement and distance.

Original text

Its reputation rested initially on the seriousness of its subject (how does a man with only a few months left to live find meaning in life?), Its humanism (Kurosawa's commitment to individual heroism, discovered in an apparently insignificant and undistinguished person), its social criticism (the satire on bureaucracy), and the power and directness of its emotional appeal ... The '' rough-hewn geometry, '' the use of the narrator, the abrupt narrative break, and the frequently disruptive editing all combine to produce a strong sense of distanciation. What is remarkable about Ikiru, and crucial to the Kurosawa '' flavor, '' is the way in which this collides with the film's equally strong emotional rhetoric, setting up a continuous tension between involvement and distance.

• Ivans XTC
• Until I played in the box

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