One life consists of many deaths; A litany of hollow gestures precedes any substantial feeling. Such is the gauntlet faced by Kenji Watanabe, the doomed hero of Akira Kurosawa’s IKIRU. As mortality leers at him, Watanabe grapples with the shoddy meaninglessness of daily existence.

IKIRU is as life-affirming as it is gutting. The film narrativizes one of the central maxims of Bleak Cinema: We must know how to suffer to know how to live. Still, IKIRU offers no triumphalism in its existentialism–Futility tinges every triumph and shame shadows every delight. Such is life.

IKIRU is presented as part of the Texas Theatre’s Akira Kurosawa Retrospective that includes other classics such as THRONE OF BLOOD, RAN, SEVEN SAMURAI, and more.

Presented by Bleak Cinema as part of the Akira Kurosawa Retrospective