Writing a review of Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” is a daunting task, to say the least. I have tried, unsuccessfully, to capture the beauty and perfection of this film more than once. Each time I feel I come short of describing why this is a movie everybody must see. “Ikiru” is too deep, complex, and mature for even I, convinced of its mastery as I am, to firmly get a grip on. It is a more complete meditation on approaching death than I could ever hope to make myself, and even though the last scene with the old man on the swing always brings me to tears, it seems to me that I do not have a complete understanding of what the film means. So here it is, my attempt at capturing some of the magic that is Kurosawa’s “Ikiru.”

The subject of the film is an aged bureaucrat named Kanji Watanabe. He has worked for close to thirty years in the same place, the Public Affairs desk in the Tokyo City Hall, surrounded by pointless stacks of paper and people who, like him, have given up living their lives so they can “protect their position . . . by doing nothing.” As the film opens, he doesn’t know it, but the narrator informs us that Kanji has stomach cancer. Kanji soon visits the doctor and discovers, though they try to hide it from him, the awful truth.

Kanji is played brilliantly as a downtrodden, awkward old man by frequent Kurosawa collaborator Takeshi Shimura. You may recognize Shimura from his roles in the original Godzilla movies, but here and in other Kurosawa films – most notably “Seven Samurai,” “Stray Dog,” and “Rashomon” – he proves to be a very versatile and sympathetic actor (the worst role in which I have ever seen him was as a villain in Kurosawa’s “The Bad Sleep Well”), capturing the pathos of Kanji as he nears his death. Shimura was himself getting old by this point, and would soon see himself being replaced by Toshiro Mifune as Kurosawa’s favorite leading man, but this and “Seven Samurai,” his last Kurosawa film as a leading man, are his best performances, and perhaps the best performances in any Kurosawa movie.

“Ikiru” follows Kanji as finally he tries, after thirty years, to live his life. What does it mean to live? The answer comes at the end of the film, but at first Kanji is powerless to do anything but regret his mistakes, particularly the ones involving his son, and bemoan his poor fortune. Soon, however, he tries to live the life he has been missing. First by enjoying a life of rambunctious partying and then by trying to learn about life from a young woman. Eventually, he finds what he was looking for, but to reveal what it is would be a crime.

Kanji spends the entire film right in front of the camera, and, except for the funeral scene, is in every scene of the film. Kurosawa and cinematographer Asakazu Nakai use deep focus, putting Kanji close to the camera so we can read every expression on his face as he reacts to new environments and people. The various worlds he occupies, the paper-heaped office of Public Affairs, his unhappy home, and the dirty streets and wild nightlife of postwar Japan, are captured with great beauty by Kurosawa, as he gives us what can only be described as a complete portrait of a man’s life. At the office Kanji is buried by papers and surrounded by similarly lifeless people. At home the atmosphere is dark and unforgiving, like his son, who bears grudges against his father from years past. In the streets, life is overly chaotic and sinful, a product, perhaps, of the American influence since the war. There is a remarkable shot in the middle of the film of Kanji’s shadow passing across the open sky as he crosses a bridge. The silhouette of the old man and the setting sun imply doom, but the open and free mise-en-scene contrasts with the rest of the film, showing that Kanji is finally learning, in the sunset of his life, how to live.

The final revelation of the film is told in flashback, by, ironically, a group of people who do not understand the implications of what they are saying. The audience, which at this point has become one with the old man, sees Kanji’s triumph for what it is. We share in his personal glory, and hardly feel bad that none of his co-workers appreciate what he did – “Ikiru,” which in Japanese means “to live,” is not about impressing others or accepting the role you are given. Living a full life means more than just playing by the numbers.

Again, I feel I haven’t done this glorious film justice with this short review. Please, see this movie. Several times.