Ikiru

“There's nothing left of that will or passion. They've been completely worn down by the minutia of the bureaucratic machine and the meaningless busyness it breeds.“ In Kurosawa’s Ikiru, bureaucrat Kanji Watanabe is given six months to live before he dies of stomach cancer. His last few months on earth exposes the monotony of bureaucracy and why it is antithetical to living. How it deprives people of their life, joy, and meaning. How government institutions that are meant to serve the living are run by people who are bred to be dead inside, unfeeling and uncaring of the public they represent. But that monotony is not only present in Watanabe’s bureaucratic desk job, stamping his days away with his own seal of approval. It’s there with his son, who is waiting by the minute to inherit his father’s money; with his brother reminding him constantly how lonely his work has made him, goading him to find a new wife; with the fast, unforgiving pace of modern life in post-WWII Japan. Then what is Kurosawa’s answer to monotony? How do you cure something more malignant than cancer? For Watanabe, meaning and purpose aren’t found in thrill-seeking, numbing himself with partying and drinking, which only worsen the cancer of his monotony. He can share joy by spending time with his younger coworker, living vicariously through her, but he can’t replicate what gives her purpose. Watanabe sees clearly that you have to find and create your own. The opposite of bureaucracy is action, creating and building something that can be realized and used by the public to enrich their lives. By fast-tracking plans for a children’s playground, and pushing through the petty politics that would normally halt this kind of project, Watanabe solidifies his life’s purpose and ensures a future for the neighborhood children to live a life free of the monotony that dominated his.

heartwrenching, yet cautionary tale about death and life, worth a watch if you havent seen it