A few weeks back I reviewed a movie called Rashomon, which I considered to be an absolute masterpiece. That movie was directed by Akira Kurosawa, and so I was really excited when I saw that Ikiru was by the same director. I’ve also always heard way more about Ikiru than Rashomon, so I figured that I was going to be blown away by Ikiru. Unfortunately, while I did like this movie, it wasn’t quite the same level of masterpiece that I found Rashomon to be.
To be fair, I think that Ikiru has a fantastic premise. The movie starts with an old bureaucrat named Kanji Watanabe finding out that he has terminal stomach cancer. Watanabe realizes that he’s wasted the last 30 years of his life at his job, and so he decides to spend his final days trying to find meaning. I’m always really interested in concepts like this, and so I was really into the movie from the start.
Where the movie went wrong for me personally was its length. The movie clocks in at a little under 2 and a half hours, and this movie was a perfect example for me of how a movie should only be this long if it has enough interesting things going on. The frustrating thing about Ikiru for me was that it has some really incredible scenes in it, but these are mixed with plenty of moments that just feel like dead air. This makes the movie drag after a while, and this is most notable in the second half of the movie, when it mainly starts being about a bunch of guys sitting around talking (no spoilers to the context).
However, when it’s on point, Ikiru is really good. There were some quotes throughout the movie that I found to be really profound. The movie does a great job at tackling themes of life’s meaning, family problems, and bureaucratic nonsense. There are some moments throughout the movie where Watanabe is reflecting or trying to make sense of things, and I was so invested in his journey. If this movie received some edits to trim out some of the dead air and shorten the length, I think it would be a fantastic movie. But as it is, I only liked it, when I was hoping to love it.
3.5/5
Useful info. Fortunate me I found your website by chance, and I’m stunned why this coincidence didn’t came about earlier! I bookmarked it.
An fascinating dialogue is price comment. I believe that you must write more on this topic, it may not be a taboo topic however usually persons are not sufficient to talk on such topics. To the next. Cheers
You really make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this topic to be really something which I think I would never understand. It seems too complicated and very broad for me. I’m looking forward for your next post, I’ll try to get the hang of it!
Hiya, I am really glad I have found this info. Nowadays bloggers publish just about gossip and web stuff and this is actually irritating. A good web site with interesting content, this is what I need. Thanks for making this website, and I will be visiting again. Do you do newsletters by email?
Thanx for the effort, keep up the good work Great work, I am going to start a small Blog Engine course work using your site I hope you enjoy blogging with the popular BlogEngine.net.Thethoughts you express are really awesome. Hope you will right some more posts.
Greetings, I do believe your website could possibly behaving web browser compatibility issues. Whenever I look at your web site in Safari, it looks fine however when opening in InternetExplorer, it’s got some overlapping issues. I merely wanted toprovide you with a quick heads up! Other than that,wonderful blog!
Very good article! We are linking to this particularly great content on our site. Keep up the great writing.
Thanks for fantastic info I was looking for this info for my mission.
Thank you ever so for you article post.
Thank you ever so for you article post.
Like!! Great article post.Really thank you! Really Cool.