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Movie recommendation: Ikiru (1952)

Added 2023-04-04 07:54:23 +0000 UTC

Ikiru (“To Live”) is a 1952 Japanese movie directed by Akira Kurosawa. I don’t know to what extent it’s a conscious influence, but I once saw it listed as a Heideggerian movie, specifically one that tackles Heidegger’s notion of being-unto-death (or being-toward-death), which posits that authenticity can only be attained with a genuine acknowledgment of one’s mortality.

The movie’s protagonist, Watanabe, is an unrepentant bureaucrat - a particularly good example of Heidegger’s idea of an inauthentic existence - an exemplar of what Heidegger would call “the They” - those who act a particular way simply because it’s “what one does”. For Watanabe, standard bureaucratic procedure and rule-following trumps all other concerns. (The movie also has a Kafkaesque portrayal of the bureaucratic labyrinth). It is only when Watanabe finds out he has cancer and less than a year to live that he wakes up to the inauthenticity of his existence and begins to look for a meaning to his life - hence, being-unto-death.

All in all, it’s an extremely touching movie, and is likely to make you cry towards the end.