Country
Japan
Year
1952
Language
Japanese spoken, Dutch subtitles
Actors
Takashi Shimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Kyoko Seki
Director
Akira Kurosawa
Duration
143 min
4K restoration of Kurosawa's compassionate character study, filmed in a style modern for the time, said to be Steven Spielberg's favorite film.
The beautiful Ikiru shows Akira Kurosawa at his most empathetic: he emphasizes life through an approaching death. Takashi Shimura sublimely plays an elderly civil servant with cancer who is searching for meaning in his last days. Kurosawa's quiet, deeply human character study about loneliness in the face of death casts a gentle glance at what it means to live. Ikiru is more than a film title, it is also a Japanese concept that can be translated as 'life' or 'living one's life'. The terminally ill civil servant in Ikiru asks himself how he can still give his life meaning and impact in the face of death.
The Best of Akira Kurosawa
In July we will show five timeless masterpieces by Japanese grandmaster Akira Kurosawa, a pioneer in combining Western storytelling techniques with Japanese stories. This led to groundbreaking films that inspired filmmakers worldwide, from Sergio Leone to George Lucas. We will show three epic samurai films (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Ran), a crime thriller (High and Low) and a human drama (Ikiru).
There are no new dates planned (yet) for Classics: Ikiru.
