Kurosawa Gets It
Speaking of movies about epiphanic awakenings, you really can’t beat Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru. As Melanjolly said a few days ago, waking up and responding properly to the beauty of reality has to be “much harder than watching Click.” Kurosawa understands this, how easy it is to accept facile substitutes for life, and how much sweat the gods have put on the path to virtue.
I stopped watching Stranger than Fiction half-way through, because it was so apparent that for Harold Crick, “living life” meant avoiding his job and seeking sexual union with someone who attracted him. Watanabe, the hero of Ikiru, who knows he is about to die (just like Harold Crick) also avoids his job and pursues a beautiful woman, but there is a difference.
The difference is that unlike Harold Crick, Watanabe has a destiny. There is a deed that he was put on Earth to do and he does it, though it costs him pain and humiliation and does not get him into the sack with the girl.
Update: Create your own epiphany by participating in our “Share the Love” contest, and you could win a free subscription to the Grackle, a complete set of volume I, and a $20 cash prize!
[…] Grubby over at the blog Skreak! has written a short piece (or more like a thought) hat briefly compares the concept of “living life” as portrayed in Ikiru and the recent Stranger than Fiction (directed by Marc Forster, starring Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah, Emma Thompson, and Linda Hunt). […]
Pingback by “Kurosawa Gets It” :.: Akira Kurosawa News and Information — April 19, 2007 @ 3:30 am