Adam's Thought on Ikiru by Akira Kurosawa

I originally screened Ikiru by Akira Kurosawa in 2004. I was 16 years old. I will be telling you why I chose the film, why I fell in love with it, and why it's one of my all-time favorite Kurisawa films. We've all been there, question our existence and our very mortality, wondering if tomorrow will ever come. I found myself thinking this in the year 2004, a very turbulent time in my personal life. I was changing schools, having to meet knew people, and was subjected to quite a few medical issues (I'll spare you the details). Essentially, I found myself wondering at such a young age the meaning of life, and if I knew my "expiration date," what I'd do.

Whenever I see a film, I always try to find a way to connect it with my own life. This comes easier to some films, and harder to others. I saw Ikiru in the Spring of 2004 (April). I felt a deep emotional connection with it, wondering how I would feel if I put myself in Mr. Watanabe's (our protagonist) shoes. If I had wasted the last 30 years of my life in a bureaucratic job, how would I feel knowing that my ultimate demise was impending? Granted, being 16 years old at the time I had not experienced such a lackluster lifestyle that Mr. Watanabe had, but I found myself still asking what I would do. What does Watanabe have? Solely his job. His family is only concerned with how much money they will gain from his inheritance. He has his papers at his desk and nothing else. When Watanabe meets the gentleman at the bar, he finally begins to live. He goes out to night clubs, bars, and the like and lets himself be free. This is where my second favorite scene of the entire film occurs. When Watanabe is inside the dance club, he requests that the piano player play a solemn Japanese pop hit from the early 1900's. It is here that everyone is taken aback by Watanabe singing the lyrics. The look on his face says it all: no matter how much he tries to forget he has terminal cancer, he cannot get away from it. Alcohol only masks (and worsens) his problem. Dancing and being free are only temporary reliefs. The fact of the matter is, he will die, and he has frittered away a third of his life stamping papers. This scenes is haunting to me because it seems to me that he finally realizes he cannot get away.

Side note: I also enjoy the film because it speaks out against bureaucracy (one of my sore spots). The work Watanabe is doing is meaningless. He has lived his life at a desk with an ink pad and stamp in hand. He was simply a cog in a machine all these years, and thanks to the monotonous monster known as bureaucracy, he has led a worthless life. What's worse is that he is constantly reminded of it when he goes home by his certificate of appreciation for years of hard work.

I felt that the interaction he had with the enthusiastic young lady from his office is also very important. Watanabe obviously had never had the sort of interaction he had had with her before. She offered him a sense of hope. Perhaps in the time he has left, he can see life in the way that she does: carefree, enthused, and full of vivacity. It's also very important to note that she is poor, yet she loves life so much. Watanabe realizes that no matter how much money he has, he has always been miserable. Watanabe wonders, "If this young lady can live her life without money to it's fullest, why can't I?" Money can't buy happiness. Watanabe starts to realizes all of those things he took for granted while being cooped up in his office, like sunsets.

Watanabe's death was important. It served as a wake up call to all the other employees in his office. The employees also realize that by sending people around to other departments, they're wasting the other people's lives, too. The second to last scene at the mourning of Watanabe's death is not only my favorite in the film, but my favorite of almost every movie I've ever seen because of the harsh realization the employees come to.

The brevity of life is the meaning of the film. Ikriru (in English, "To Live") is a film that made me personally take a step back and remember to not take anything for granted. I hope that anyone who views this film can have a sort of trans formative experience, connect the film with your own life, and remember that life is brief.

Brian Hammons' thoughts on Ikiru

I rather liked this. I've seen at least ten Kurosawa films previously, mostly samurai stories, and while I was always fascinated by his aesthetic touch (a visual from Ran (1985) ran through my head the other day) I've never had any sort of deep, emotional resonance with his films. Ikiru is on many "best of all-time" film lists which was reason enough for me to have it on my radar, that being said I was glad to have the opportunity to view it afforded to me via my participation in this club.

Back to the idea of having a personal connection to the material, this story certainly appeals to the human condition, and ultimately asks us to grapple with our own questions of mortality, etc. What kind of decisions do we want to make, or digging deeper, what kind of impact would we like to leave behind? Both fascinating and patently deep, complex questions we may find ourselves grappling with one day.

In terms of sheer moviemaking thoughts, Takashi Shimura truly floored me with his performance as Kanji Watanabe. I actually found most of the acting in the film uniformly strong, but his portrayal of a dying man had such gravitas and depth that it clearly stood out. I know it'll be lodged taking up residence in my own head for a long time. Kurosawa directed with a confidence and assuredness that gives the film real weight. His use of transitioning between different points of time strengthened the tale.

If I were to come up with any negative things to say about it, there'd be very little I could come up with immediately. I would say I enjoyed the first two-thirds or so the most, the last act of all the other government officials getting drunk and reminiscing and philosophizing certainly had its point but after while started grinding for me. It did go to show, near the end, that faced with the same opportunity to do good, they couldn't muster the inner-strength and courage to break tradition and make a moral stand the way Watanabe had.

I just love the idea of this "mummy" cocooned in piles of paperwork for nearly thirty years wanting, if just for one day, to live life to its fullest and embrace every moment.

Film #13: Ikiru (1952)

Ikiru (生きる "To Live"?) is a 1952 Japanese film co-written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film examines the struggles of a minor Tokyo bureaucrat and his final quest for meaning. The film stars Takashi Shimura as Kanji Watanabe.

Jessie's Thoughts on Eyes Without a Face

Well a most unique entry and served it's purpose of being a film I personally wouldn't have chosen myself or had heard about be it not through this little group. Not sure where to start, maybe I'm in the minority here but this didn't feel so much to me a horror movie, sort of in the same vein as Let the Right One In. Yes, there's murder, disfiguration, strange occurrences, but sort of feels like a story revolving around one central character and the strange lifestyle she's trying to deal with. I like how Daryl put "Christiane moves around her house like a ghost", in every sense of the word he's right. She has no life, her call to Jacques breaking the unwritten laws of her new existence while awaiting her new face. Even then, Christiane is gone, in spirit as much as name and body.

Her father is an interesting aspect of this film, as on the surface his motives seem noble, loving even, he wants his daughter to live on, with a whole face and body, no matter how he must achieve it. But once the movie starts getting deeper, it's obvious to everyone watching her life is miserable waiting for this new persona, and she has no will to go on like this. You don't see much face time between father and daughter either, as if just to do it is the payoff for him, he is more concerned about recreating what he did for Louise than really talking to his daughter about how she feels about it. I actually thought the ending made sense, and was happy with it, you were right though boss, Louise died with such poise, it was a strange scene.

I'm not sure ipulled some of the profound messages Geo was referring to while watching it, but i suppose you could, nonetheless it's a surprising movie because you may think one thing (as I was inevitably thinking this would be a more sophisticated version of freakish 80's horror film from my youth, "Pieces" and i guess it kind of was) but actually the filmmakers did have something in mind more than just baseless horror.

Dspang's Thoughts on Eyes Without a Face

Lets give it up for Edith Scob!!! Man o' man. I'm not too sure about her earlier output but she was all over this movie. Talk about having a tough challenge. She's given a role where there aren't many lines and the only way she can communicate is through her eyes and her body language. Every time she was on screen, despite her mask, I was enraptured. She moved like a ghost through the house. Her eyes, damn, I've never seen more expressive, more deeply emotional eyes in a movie for a long time. Her whole role was almost ethereal. Loved it. When we got to see her face grafted, she was absolutely beautiful. Excellent performance.

It seems the running theme in this movie though was of sight and the eyes. Less so about actual appearances. There were so many moments where there were close-ups on character's eyes. Even in black and white the women in this movie all had beautiful eyes. I think this movie had a lot to do with having to see things every day that maybe you didn't want to see. The one girl in the movie didn't really want to see Christiane's deformed face, and it horrified her. Christiane had to witness as her father and Louise murder girl after girl in order to save Christiane. Here we have horrible things going on right in front of our eyes every day and we often fail to see them. We look away. That was an underlying message I often felt this movie was giving out. The one point when Christiane wished she was blind. I can see that as metaphorical. Not only did she not want to see her face, but her face in a way was also serving as a reminder of the horrible acts being performed in her name. I found myself shedding a slight tear every time Christiane picked up the phone to talk to Jaques. That was heartbreaking. The sense of longing in her eyes. You don't see much acting like that anymore.

Then we have Dr. Genessier. In a way he had a moral obligation to Christiane. He caused the bulk of her pain and suffering with his wanting to control everything. I can understand the considerable guilt he was feeling. But we can't forget that he is the villain here. This is a man so convinced of his abilities that he feels that he can save anyone despite the time period's technology. Its cliche to mention the god-complex for the millionth time but this movie referenced it a lot better than anything having to do with genetics has in the past.

By the end of the movie you can just tell that Christiane has lost all hope. Its in her eyes. A weariness that sticks out quite well. The doctor's death is quite befitting to him and seems to have a slight reference to Frankenstein in that his creations or experiments turned on him. In a way Christiane was his biggest experiment. His longing for control of everything seemed to consume him more than his love of his daughter. By the end of the movie I felt that he was just grafting faces to see if he could successfully do it.

All in all this movie is fantastic. This is my second viewing of it and all of this movie shoots back to a time when movie-making was a lot more simple. Excellent.

Brian Hammons' thoughts on Eyes Without a Face

I was excited to see this as it sort of killed two birds with one stone given my current interests in film. When tackling the grueling task of watching all the "great" movies of all time (which I'm currently embroiled in), it's difficult to pinpoint a good "jumping in" spot, so lately the bulk of my film viewing has been from the decade of the '50's; thankfully, this film (depending on your sources, some date it as being from '59) and the next selection (Ikiru) are both from that decade. Also, I've developed a bit of an affinity for French film, in fact our logo graphic on this blog is a snapshot from Godard's spellbinding masterpiece Pierrot le fou which still invades my thoughts every so often.

I watched a sizable portion of this in the library on my laptop. The juxtaposition of the eerie, stark black and white photography, and general creepiness of the film contrasted to the bright colors and smiling, young faces of passerby. I think a big misconception at the film, given our current sensibilities, is to equate it to the exploitation fare comparable to Saw and its legion of sequels, but that'd be doing it a real disservice, I found it much closer to works of great German Romantic fabulist E. T. A. Hoffman, or perhaps even a more sinister, fatalistic Brothers Grimm tale. It really is poetically perverse.

Some other misc. thoughts: I absolutely loved Edith Scob's (as Christiane Génessier) eyes in the dinner scene, so expressive, full of such emotional depth, her "face" having to convey so much where not a lot is actually said, just a stunning bit of acting and probably my favorite moment. A funny little thing is the "theme" so to speak that plays several times during the film I recognized right away from the hilarious HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, I'm not sure it was intentionally lifted from a forty-year old Franju film or if its a more common piece of music but given the two completely different contexts its used I couldn't help but grin. Louise referred to Christiane as angelic at one point, which she sort of did appear like towards the end, freeing the animals, a savior so to speak to the would-be tortured experimental specimens. I thought Louise's death was sort of hokey, she took a scalpel directly into her throat with more poise and class then I did when I received my degree at college graduation. I liked this, good pick Darrel, don't know that I'd call it top-shelf '60's horror and/or French work, but its certainly a fun watch and will leave some mental mementos behind in my mind. I'm looking forward to your third selection next round -- I'll be sure to have my silver bullet, garlic, shotgun, holy book, and crucifix for whatever hellish movie you hurl our way!

Adam's Thoughts on Eyes Without a Face

Excellent choice, Darrel. I really dug this film. The horror genre has seem to have become so convoluted with "pop-out-and-scare-you" and "stab-stab" horror that the genre itself is suffering. In viewing the 1960s French film, Eyes Without a Face, I find that I can point to a movie as a reference point. When asked, "What's a good horror movie?" I can respond with both Caligari and Eyes without a Face.

As I was watching this movie, I found myself saying over and over that the scenery in this film played such an essential role. The darkness and shadowy fore and backgrounds really played off the hurt and anguish that Christiane is feeling in her life. I liked how Dr. Genessier played the mad scientist role, not to cause harm for his own benefit, but to rectify the tragedy that was suffered by Christiane in the car accident that was his fault. This offered a glimpse of "good intent" on behalf of the surgeon.

I feel this film also carries two very important morals: be thankful for what you have, and know that someone somewhere else is suffering more. How many of us wake up in the morning and think, "I'm glad I have my face." Very few, I'm sure. This film brought to the forefront one of the many things that humans take for granted on a daily basis.

Really choice selection, Darrel. I'd love to discuss more classic horror some time and look forward to seeing your future recommendations.