Ikiru - English subtitled
Moving classic by Akira Kurosawa about an elderly civil servant with cancer who is searching for meaning in his last days of life. Steven Spielberg’s favourite film.
Ikiru shows Akira Kurosawa at his most empathetic. In this tender, humanistic film about loneliness in the face of death, Kurosawa gently explores what it means to be alive. More than just the film title, Ikiru is also a Japanese term, which can be translated as ‘to live’ or ‘to live one’s life’. The terminally ill civil servant in Ikiru asks himself how he can still find meaning in his last days. Through a series of eye-opening encounters, he begins to blossom.
In Europe, director Akira Kurosawa is best known for his samurai films which means other works from his oeuvre are sometimes overlooked. This character study, filmed in a style that was modern for its time, demonstrates that there is so much more to Kurosawa than epic period dramas.
In 2022, director Oliver Hermanus made a British remake titled Living, which was nominated for two Oscars.