How to Live: A Philosophical Exploration on Existential Anxiety and Death Denial in Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru

Introduction

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. –Mark Twain

From the emergence of philosophical and even theological inquiry, mankind has tried to cope with the numerous questions circulating around the nature of life and being: “what does it mean to live? What is a life worth living?” But nothing has perplexed men and women more than the inevitable consequence of life: death. From the moment each of us is born, we merely survive on borrowed time, sentenced to one day cease being. For many, alleviation from such anxiety comes in the form of religion. In almost all major religions, especially the Western conceptions, there is some promise of life beyond the clod clutches of the grave – either in a potential paradise or the process of reincarnation, an opportunity to live again and again. Though, for others, who do not intertwine religion with their lives, the prospect of an afterlife is no solution to their existential dread, distorting the question into: “what can life mean if it leads to nothingness?” Through this fear of emptiness, the meaning of life returns to the atheist as a primary inquiry: “what does it mean to truly live? Is there a life worth living to compensate for the inevitability of our demise?”

Famed philosophers such as Soren Kierkegaard, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre have contemplated the subject of existence and written about it often; however, philosophers have not been the only ones to do so. Writers such as William Shakespeare and Mark Twain have also explored the meanings behind life and death. Then, in the 20^th Century, when filmmaking became a popular means of storytelling, writers and directors, such as Akira Kurosawa, Alfred Hitchcock, Ridley Scott, and Sam Mendes, began to explore the topic as well. Each of their films provides their own take on the meaning of life or what it means to be, especially in the face of mortality; however, Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film, Ikiru – about a terminally ill bureaucrat’s search for meaning before his approaching death – reigns as one of the most beautifully crafted and emotive films to explore and potentially answer the question of what a meaningful life looks like. The journey Kurosawa’s character, Kanji Watanabe, takes in Ikiru mirrors a majority of what philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, wrote and argued about human existence and its meaning. However, after Watanabe moves through the initial stages of Kierkegaard’s three spheres of existential anxiety, he eventually discovers his own answer for how to live – parallel to Jean Paul Sartre’s argument for making and living by free choice.

History and Synopsis of Ikiru

In March of 1910, Japanese filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa, was born in Tokyo. As a young boy, his father wanted to expose him to Western culture, so he was often taken to see the latest films (Biography.com Editors). As Kurosawa grew, he became heavily interested in the visual arts, and after applying at a film studio, his work caught the attention of Kajiro Yamamoto – Japan’s biggest director at the time (Biography.com Editors). After working as an assistant director for seven years, Kurosawa stayed in Tokyo during the Second World War and continued on to become a director. As soon as he could helm his own films, Kurosawa soared, making films that were not only a celebration but also quite often a critique of Japanese culture. More notably, his films were renowned for their exploration on humanity and humanness. Two years after his first international hit, Rashomon (1950), Akira Kurosawa released a second internationally acclaimed film – one that is considered his best film by some critics: Ikiru (1952). Even famed critic, Roger Ebert, who first saw the film back in the early 1960’s, wrote highly of it on his movie reviewing website, stating, “Over the years I have seen ‘Ikiru’ every five years or so, and each time it has moved me, and made me think” (Ebert).

The highly stylized and thought-provoking story of Ikiru follows Kanji Watanabe, a middle-aged, Japanese bureaucrat, who has followed the same monotonous routine for the last thirty years. Something the narrator affectionately refers to as “killing time,” (Ikiru). Day in and day out, Watanabe eats the same bland noodles for lunch and stamps the same, meaningless papers. His government job at the section of Public Affairs – where he approached a record for thirty years of perfect attendance – is nothing more than a way to fill his days and save 50,000 yen in his pension. However, as viewers are informed of his life, they are also exposed to a group of mothers trying to force the government to act on a sewage run-off, which is poisoning local children, yet in the bureaucratic system of Japan, nothing is done.

Though the gears of Watanabe’s mechanized life turn the same, pre-determined way everyday, a single, cancerous wrench brings the entire system of routine crashing down upon him. After suffering from stomach pains, Watanabe learns at a doctor’s office – from another patient, who is not afraid to tell him the truth – that he not only has stomach cancer but just a few, short months to live. This realization of his own mortality sends Watanabe on a journey to find meaning in his own existence. Heartbroken, Watanabe no longer shows up for work. Instead, he tries to reconnect with his son, but when he overhears that his son and daughter-in-law are only interested in him for his money, Watanabe’s emptiness leads him to search for meaning outside the confines of his broken home.

Later, viewers discover him in a restaurant drinking. There, Watanabe befriends a novelist and voices his doom to this stranger for the very first time. Watanabe even admits to this man his consideration for suicide – after being confronted with mortality. Dazed by the news, the novelist prompts Watanabe to join him for a night on the town, a night of aesthetic pleasures. They begin by gambling, continue drinking, buy Watanabe a new hat, drink some more, ogle pretty girls, chase pretty girls, and even dance. Yet, none of this satisfies Watanabe for long; eventually, the distraction falls flat, and he recounts his fate in song.

In the morning, the lone Watanabe walks home from his night out – no more enlightened than before the sun had risen; however, he runs into a young girl from his office. She states that she has been looking for him; she needs his approval to quit from the office and pursue a more enjoyable line of work. Watanabe agrees but wants to do more to help her. After approving her resignation, he takes her out for the day, buying her new, hole-less stockings, going ice-skating, to a fair, eating more than a few times, seeing a show, and finally bringing her home for dinner. Back in this shared space, his son yells at him for frolicking about with a young girl, who is costing him his inheritance, but Watanabe, who feels he has lost his son, continues to invest time and energy into her happiness.

Unfortunately though, she begins to question his interest, feeling uneasy about their relationship and his consistent investment in it. They both agree to one more dinner, but there is no pleasure in it for either of them. They sit quietly before the backdrop of a birthday party until she asks why he does this, why he takes her out. At first, Watanabe lies, claiming not to know why, but he admits he is dying and naturally envies her youth. His jealousy is fueled by the amount of time she has before her, so as a dying man, he wants her to live life fully and happily. Yet she remains frigid. Realizing the futility of their situation, even after a rant on life Watanabe flees, ready to try something new based on her suggestion to create something. As Watanabe retreats from the restaurant, confirming to himself that there is hope and something he can do, the camera fades.

The next day, as his co-workers arrive at the office of Public Affairs, they find Kanji Watanabe back with an enthusiasm like never before. He informs them that they will approve the request of the mothers – from earlier in the film – to fix the sewage problem and build their proposed playground. The men are shocked but decide to go along with him. However, as Watanabe is exiting the office moments later – to survey the site for himself – the film jumps to the wake of Kanji Watanabe’s funeral a mere five months later.

There, amongst his colleagues and his son, the men discuss Watanabe’s last few months of life and his sudden desire to subvert the comfortable bureaucracy to build that playground. As they eat, drink, and deliberate, the group eventually comes to the realization that Watanabe knew he was going to die, and he had the playground built as his final, noble act of life. Through tears and drunkenness, the men vow to live their lives by Watanabe’s example, but back at the office – when they are confronted with another opportunity to create something beneficial for the community – they all conform to their acquainted bureaucratic tendencies and as always do nothing, leaving the viewer with an impression that the only motivation to live comes from a fear of death.

A Foundation on Boredom

In his earliest work, Either/Or: A Life Fragment, Danish and Lutheran philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard writes about the first two stages of life, in regard to existential dread: the aesthetic and the ethical. He begins by noting that at the root of the aesthetic life – and in-turn the root of existential dread – is boredom. He writes,

How dreadful boredom is — how dreadfully boring; I know no stronger expression, no truer one, for like is recognized only by like… I lie prostrate, inert; the only thing I see is emptiness, the only thing I live on is emptiness, the only thing I move in is emptiness… If I were offered all the glories of the world or all the torments of the world, one would move me no more than the other; I would not turn over to the other side either to attain or to avoid. I am dying death (Kierkegaard 37).

Boredom, in Kierkegaard’s opinion, is much like death, if not death itself. As he describes, boredom makes one empty and uncaring, unable to be affected mentally, physically, or even spiritually. When one reaches this state, it is as if they are dead – since they do no more and feel no more than a dead man or woman.

In Ikiru, Kanji Watanabe suffers from the fatal type of boredom Kierkegaard describes in Either/Or. As the film opens, an unseen narrator recounts Watanabe’s life for context. As Watanabe sits behind his desk at the office of Public Affairs, mindlessly stamping papers, the narrator states,

Here’s our protagonist. But what a bore it would be to describe his life now. Why? Because he’s only killing time. He’s never actually lived. You can’t call this living… This isn’t even worth watching. He might as well be a corpse. In fact, he’s been dead for some 20 years now. Before that, he had some life in him. He even tried to do a little real work. But there’s nothing left of that will or passion. They’ve been completely worn down by the minutia of the bureaucratic machine and the meaningless busyness it breeds. (Ikiru).

Before Watanabe has a chance to speak, the narrator brutally shares the boredom of his life with the audience. As a man who does nothing more than work as a bureaucrat, who does nothing, the narrator describes Watanabe’s existence simply yet callously as “killing time” (Ikiru). Watanabe wants for nothing more and does nothing more than fill space in what Kurosawa regards as a useless system. By not wanting anything more or doing anything more, Watanabe is – by Kierkegaard’s definition – suffering from dreadful boredom, and because of this, even the narrator describes Watanabe as “a corpse” – much like Kierkegaard would. However, there remains some hope for Watanabe and his meaningless existence; the narrator closes his opening monologue by stating about him, “But is this enough? Is this really enough? For him to start thinking seriously about this, his stomach will have to get a lot worse, and he’ll have to rack up a lot more wasted time” (Ikiru).

Camus and Watanabe’s Suicidal Desire

Of course, Kanji Watanabe’s health does get much worse, and with his diagnosis, he is lead into realizing the absurdity of his life. Though, before diving into aesthetics for an escape, Watanabe contemplates what French philosopher and the founder of Absurdism, Albert Camus, considers the fundamental question of philosophy: suicide. In the first paragraph of his essay on the absurdity of life being inherently meaningless, The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus states,

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest— whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories—comes afterwards (Camus 3).

No matter what philosophical inquiry follows, the question of whether or not to live or die must be answered first. If one chooses to live, they must commit to answering further questions on the nature of existence, its meaning, and implications, such as why or what makes life is worth living; however, if one chooses to take their own life, the questions surrounding the entirety of existence, such as what one ought to do in life, no longer matter.

For Camus, every individual faces this choice when confronting what he called “the Absurd.” Although he described it multiple ways throughout his life, the absurd simply represents the idea that life is fundamentally meaningless. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy refers to the absurd for Camus as,

…the Absurd expresses a fundamental disharmony, a tragic incompatibility, in our existence. In effect, he [Camus] argues that the Absurd is the product of a collision or confrontation between our human desire for order, meaning, and purpose in life and the blank, indifferent ‘silence of the universe’ (Simpson).

The Absurd lies beyond a simple philosophical definition; the idea of it rises from a disconnect between human desire and a taciturn cosmos. As we live, we search for meaning, yet while we may fill our lives with people, positions, and politics, such antidotes never fully address the poisoning question in the back of our minds: “does any of this actually matter?” That question is the Absurd in action, the divide within.

Yet when that Absurd question becomes deafening – so much so the mind can no longer deny it – one naturally returns to the ultimate question of philosophy: whether or not life is worth living. Camus acknowledges this later in The Myth of Sisyphus, writing,

In a sense, and as in melodrama, killing yourself amounts to confessing. …It is merely confessing that that [life] ‘is not worth the trouble.’ Living, naturally, is never easy. You continue making the gestures commanded by existence for many reasons, the first of which is habit. Dying voluntarily implies that you have recognized, even instinctively, the ridiculous character of that habit, the absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of that daily agitation, and the uselessness of suffering (Camus 4-5).

In an Absurd reality, life becomes nothing more than a series of “gestures” and “habits,” not a fulfilling, meaningful experience. Therefore, suicide, in this instance, is an act of admitting the authenticity of the Absurd – a shortcut to the inevitable end of a cycle founded on futile anguish.

In the film, Kanji Watanabe, a man who is cursed with the ability to see the Absurd through his impending death, admits that he has considered Camus’ ultimate, philosophical question. While drinking at the restaurant, he befriends the novelist, and in talking to him, Watanabe bleeds emotion. Spilling over, he confesses for the first time – to this stranger he has just met – that he has stomach cancer. The novelist, who sees Watanabe is sipping on sake, tries to warn him, “drinking when you have stomach cancer is suicide” (Ikiru). However, as the words leave his lips, the novelist realizes that this is exactly what Watanabe desires; he confirms as much, replying, “The thing is… I can’t go through with it. ‘Go ahead and kill yourself,’ I think. And yet, I just can’t do it” (Ikiru). The novelist tries to reason with him by asking if Watanabe has children, yet Watanabe continues to state that his life has been wasted.

In this short moment within the scene, Watanabe exhibits a deep understanding of Camus’ Absurd. Throughout his life, there has been a disconnect between him and the universe. He has worked for the Japanese government tirelessly and amassed a hefty savings account, yet he is not fulfilled. He is the opposite. In doing so, he has accomplished nothing significant and even lost the love of his son in the process. Thirty years later, in this moment, his existence, which has been nothing more than habit and following societal norms, is truly absurd. Death tapping at his door, Watanabe, like many who perceive the Absurd, wishes to simply end it all and take a sake filled shortcut to the inevitable, yet he cannot – leaving the ultimate question unanswered, forcing him to ask more.

The Unsustainable Aesthetic Life

As Watanabe and the novelist talk in the bar, Watanabe continues to drink, despite his cancer. He admits that the burning liquid does not please his sense of taste; though, the intoxication allows him to “forget my cancer and all the other painful things” (Ikiru). Here, Watanabe begins the transition from his realization of the Absurd into Kierkegaard’s first stage of being in regard to existential anxiety: the aesthetic. Over the course of his life, Kierkegaard defined and redefined what he saw as the aesthetic life; however, in each iteration of the aesthetic stage, found primarily in the works: Either/Or: A Life Fragment, Sickness Unto Death, and Stages on Life’s Way, there are some consistent concepts. In an excerpt from Modern Schoolman: A Quarterly Journal of Philosophy, Dr. Howard P. Kainz, a professor of philosophy at Marquette University, takes Kierkegaard’s various writings on the three stages and dilutes them into one, focused essay. Kainz describes Kierkegaard’s aesthetic stage of being as that of pleasure seeking, stating,

Such is the life of pleasure in its abstract, one-sided existence, where the ‘immediate’ individual nourishes his many faculties, and needs, and aspects, at the table of contingency. There is no good/evil alternative here, but only the pleasure /pain alternative… But always pleasure in some form is the attracting force, pain the repellent (Kainz 362-363).

In this first stage, the individual cares for nothing more than pleasures and thus devotes his or her life solely to the pursuit of pleasure. In such a hedonistic chase, there is no such thing as good and evil; therefore, they are ignored.

However, the aesthetic stage, much like life, is not everlasting; eventually, the distraction and pursuit of pleasure fail, giving way to the temporarily forgotten existential dread. The aesthete individual simply repeats the same patterns or pleasurable pastimes so much so that their once joyous diversion no longer claim his or her full attention (Kainz 365). In doing so, the individual inevitably returns to despair, as Kainz states, “In short, by anchoring his existence at the shore of that which can-be or not-be, of that which is essentially transitory – he is in despair” (Kainz 365). Earthly pleasures, by their fleeting nature, cannot last and therefore cannot prolong an aesthetic life. This failure opens the door for anxiety, casting a light that leads the individual back into their existential dread, like a moth into the flame. In his own words, Kierkegaard, in Either/Or: A Life Fragment, likens this experience to that of drinking wine and the eventual sobering, stating,

Wine no longer gladdens my heart; a little of it makes me sad — much, melancholic. My soul is faint and powerless; I dig the spur of pleasure in vain into its flank, it can no more, it no longer rises up in its royal prance. I have lost all my illusions. In vain I try to abandon myself to the infinity of joy; it cannot raise me up, or rather, I cannot raise myself up (Kierkegaard 30).

Despite the wine at one point giving an opportunity to escape oneself and in-turn one’s anxiety toward existence, it – like other passing earthly pleasures – fails the aesthete individual.

In Ikiru, Kanji Watanabe briefly waltzes through Kierkegaard’s aesthetic stage –along with the novelist – as an attempt to resolving his existential dread. As they talk in the bar, Watanabe continues to drink, despite his cancer; he accepts the pain it causes and the tasteless burn for its ability to make him forget about his problems for a while. Watanabe then takes this logic of pleasure a step further by telling the man before him, “Listen, I have 50,000 yen on me that I’d like to spend all at once. But I’m ashamed to admit I’m not even sure how to go about it” (Ikiru). The novelist appreciates what Watanabe desires but insists in a slightly drunken rant to pay for their night out. He admires Watanabe’s newfound desire to live, stating, “It’s our human duty to enjoy life. Wasting it is desecrating God’s great gift. We have to be greedy for life. They say greed is a ‘vice’ but that’s outdated. Greed is a virtue, especially greed for enjoying life” (Ikiru). Here, the novelist’s words mirror that of Kierkegaard’s aesthete: life is nothing more than a search and an engagement in aesthetic pleasures. Therefore, one must be greedy for them.

However, after a montage of the duo gambling, drinking, buying a new hat for Watanabe, drinking some more, looking at pretty women, chasing pretty woman, and even a bit of dancing, Watanabe finds himself unfulfilled. In those brief moments of slot machine whirs and esophagus burns, there is happiness to be found, yet when the machine comes up empty, the alcohol wears, and the women getaway, Watanabe is left only with sadness – the reminder of his fleeting existence comes round and lodges itself inside his gut one more. Much like Kierkegaard’s aesthete, the wine – or in this case sake – no longer gladdens his heart. As the men sit, relaxing from the night so far, Watanabe requests the song, “Gondola No Uta,” from the bar’s eager, piano playing purveyor of aestheticism. As the tune begins, couples take to the dance floor and sway along with a beaded curtain. All appears well until a lone voice rings out, the voice of Kanji Watanabe singing through tears,

Life is brief – Fall in love, maidens – Before the crimson bloom – Fades from your lips – Before the tides of passion – Cool within you – For those of you – Who know no tomorrow – Life is brief – Fall in love, maidens – Before the raven tresses – Begin to fade – Before the flames in your hearts – Flicker and die – For those to whom – Today will never return (Ikiru).

In what could be considered one of the saddest scenes in cinema history, Watanabe expresses all of his feelings not only toward life itself but toward the aesthetic stage he has entered. He is not ready to die, but he is doomed to die. So he cries. Not only because he is unready but because this night – or even a life of pleasure – is not the answer; it has not given him or his life any meaning.

Before Watanabe can finish his song, the novelist drags him from the bar and back into their aesthetic night. He takes him to a burlesque show, to another bar, to a dance hall packed with other people – where Watanabe is just a sad, insignificant face in the crowd – and finally inside a cab with two attractive women. Although the novelist generously attempts to make Watanabe happy, the illusion of the aesthetic life has already been shattered, and Watanabe remains destitute, having nothing to do but walk home alone in the morning, a reflection of Kierkegaard’s observation of the aesthete: “Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it” (28). Like most men, Watanabe has worn out aesthetic pleasures and must explore other means of developing a momentous existence.

An Altruistic, Ethical Attempt at Meaning

In multiple works and essays throughout his life, such as Either/Or: A Life Fragment and Stages on Life’s Way, Soren Kierkegaard outlines the second stage of being – after the aesthetic fails – as the ethical. In this phase, the individual shifts their focus from what is beautiful to what is good in an attempt to find a deeper, richer meaning to life. For Kierkegaard, the ethical stage defines itself as a pouring out into those around the individual:

The self that is the objective is not only a personal self but a social, a civic self. He then possesses himself as a task in an activity whereby he engages in the affairs of life as this specific personality. Here his task is not to form himself but to act, and yet he forms himself at the same time, because, as I noted above, the ethical individual lives in such a way that he is continually transferring himself from one stage to another (262-263).

Being the middle stage of the three, the ethical stage exists as a necessary molding for Kierkegaard’s final stage, the religious; however, it is itself a stage of being as well. In it, one no longer lives selfishly as they did in the aesthetic, thinking only of their own pleasure, but as a civic, social being who desires to act in the interest of others. The ethical, in this sense, encompasses those who live – in general – altruistically (or at least as altruistically as possible). Kierkegaard even went so far as to say the ethical stage requires the presence of others; without them, the aesthete cannot move beyond their own aestheticism:

Alone in his kayak, a person is sufficient unto himself, has nothing to do with any person except when he himself so wishes. Alone in his kayak, a person is sufficient unto himself-but I cannot really understand how this emptiness can be filled … You should say, therefore: Alone in one’s boat, alone with one’s sorrow, alone with one’s despair-which one is cowardly enough to prefer to keep rather than to submit to the pain of healing (84-85).

To move into the altruistic ethical stage, the aesthete must embrace others instead of the sorrow found in their failed aestheticism. In doing so, they not only begin the process of healing their existential anxiety but also become more ethical individuals, worthy of the next stage.

However, the ethical stage goes beyond a simple consideration of others; it instead emphasizes a duty the individual has toward one’s neighbors. However, as Watanabe experiences this stage, he views duty in two ways – one of which Kierkegaard considered to be proper and one he did not. In Either/Or: A Life Fragment, Kierkegaard outlines the two views on duty, stating:

Therefore, the truly ethical person has an inner serenity and sense of security, for he does not have duty outside himself but within himself. The more deeply a man has structured his life ethically, the less he will feel compelled to talk about duty every moment, to worry every moment whether he is performing it, every moment to seek the advice of others about what his duty is. When the ethical is viewed properly, it makes the individual infinitely secure within himself; when it is viewed improperly, it makes the individual utterly insecure, and I cannot imagine an unhappier or more tormented life then when a person has his duty outside himself and yet continually wants to carry it out (254-255).

For Kierkegaard, an utterly ethical individual maintains a sort of serenity: one knows what is right. One knows what they ought to do, and one does it. There is no longer a nagging form of conscience, forcing them to question each action. Such uncertainty leads, as Kierkegaard states, to “torment” – where an individual wants to do the right thing but never knows how to go about it.

In Ikiru, as Kanji Watanabe walks home, after his failed night of aesthetic pleasures, he runs into the kind, effervescent girl from his office, Toyo, who is in need of his help; however, Watanabe goes significantly above and beyond the help she requests and begins doing things solely for her happiness, signifying his move into Kierkegaard’s ethical stage of existential anxiety. During their interaction, she informs him she no longer desires to toil at their dull, hollow branch in City Hall. Though she fears financial instability, she, like Watanabe, wants to pursue something more significant. Upon hearing this, Watanabe begins to empathize with the young girl. After approving her paperwork, he notices huge holes in the feet of her stockings. Quickly, he decides to join her on her walk to the office and asks where women’s stockings are sold. Unknowingly, Toyo thinks Watanabe is asking for his daughter-in-law, but in the next shot, she is running out of the store with excitement. A puzzled Watanabe stops to ask, “They make you that…” but is interrupted by Toyo saying, “I’m so happy! To buy them myself, I’d have to have sardines for lunch for three months” (Ikiru). But despite her joy, she asks, “Why did you buy them for me?” To which Watanabe replies, “Well, yours had holes in them” (Ikiru). Although this moment is brief – and leads to a series of benevolent actions by Watanabe – the simple act of buying Toyo stockings perfectly exemplifies Watanabe’s transition into Kierkegaard’s ethical stage: Watanabe acts as a social, giving being with Toyo and does not question what he ought to do; he just does it. He sees a young girl with similar ambition in his community, who happens to have some old, holey stockings, and he organically and unquestioningly decides to use some of his saved yen to buy her a new pair.

The two then spend the rest of the day together; Watanabe takes her out for tea and cakes, a little gambling, some timid, clumsy ice-skating, more food at a fair, a movie where Watanabe catches up on some sleep, and of course, dinner. In each moment of the montage, Watanabe appears genuinely happy – not for the fact that he is doing good deeds but because he is making Toyo happy. He is consistently seen observing her smile and in-turn smiling back. Even with his inevitable but unmentioned hangover from his night with the novelist, Watanabe pushes through, taking Toyo to every enjoyable place in Tokyo, making them happy together. It’s not until he starts thinking of his strained relationship with his son that his satisfaction wavers.

Later at home, Watanabe prepares to confess his critical condition to his son, but he is met with pure, unrestrained rage. His son despises him not only for going out with a young girl, thinking of it falsely as an inappropriate, romantic relationship, but also for spending his saved pension – something he felt he had a right to – in a matter of days. Not knowing what to do or what to say, Watanabe remains silent and shocked, as his fear of losing his son cements itself before his eyes.

The scene fades, and the viewer finds his or herself transported two weeks into the future where Watanabe’s sense of duty has been distorted and his ethical life appears ready to collapse. Kanji Watanabe is standing before Toyo at a factory being reminded not only of his useless job but also of Toyo’s commitment to her new job. Watanabe desperately asks her to go out with him, if not now, then later in the evening; however, Toyo denies. She questions the nature of their time spent together, uncomfortable with the idea of their relationship appearing or ever actually being romantic. Again, Watanabe begs her, even if it gets him one, final dinner. She runs back inside, but as Watanabe waddles away, she runs over, saying, “Tonight’s the last time, okay?” (Ikiru).

At dinner, the smiles from two weeks before are gone, faded from the social implications of their relationship. Watanabe sits silently, and Toyo stares at a group of young, ecstatic people across the restaurant celebrating a birthday and then a young couple cuddling with cups of tea – all things she cannot enjoy as she spends her time with this bland, old man. She pushes Watanabe for an answer as to why he treats her so well. Finally, after pushing him, he answers, “I don’t even know myself why I keep following you around. All I know is…” (Ikiru). He begins to stare off, as if into the void itself, yet suddenly, Watanabe is upright, stating:

Listen: I’m going to die soon. I’ve got stomach cancer. It’s right here. Do you see? No matter how I struggle, I’ve only got six months to a year left. When I found out, I suddenly… Now I remember: I nearly drowned in a pond once when I was a child. I felt exactly the same way then. Everything’s going black. I writhe and thrash around, but there’s nothing to hold on to except you (Ikiru).

In this confession to Toyo, it becomes clear that the fulfillment once present in Watanabe’s life on their day together has left. He is simply hanging on to her. This change comes about because Watanabe has distorted his duty in the ethical stage. At first, he bought the stockings, food, and fun solely for her and her enjoyment – because he felt giving was the right thing to do. Now, two weeks later, his duty is no longer to altruistically give to someone who has less than himself, but to give because he does not know what else to do. All he knows and all he wants is to have someone by his side, someone to keep him from facing death alone, so he gives, hoping Toyo will stay by his side.

Kierkegaard’s Final, Heavenly Stage

For Kierkegaard, neither an aesthetic or ethical life can be fulfilling; both inevitably lead the individual into ruin. Although he poses the aesthetic and ethical stages as a choice between problematic lifestyles in Either/Or: A Life Fragment, Kierkegaard hints at the third and final stage of being near the end of that work, which he later elaborates on in Stages on Life’s Way. Since bodily pleasures and ethics ultimately fail to resolve an individual’s existential anxiety, Kierkegaard ultimately prescribes religion, specifically Christianity, as the cure and third stage. In a passage from Stages On Life’s Way, Kierkegaard outlines the role each stage (or sphere) plays, writing:

The esthetic [aesthetic] sphere is the sphere of immediacy, the ethical the sphere of requirement (and this requirement is so infinite that the individual always goes bankrupt), the religious the sphere of fulfillment, but, please note, not a fulfillment such as when one fills an alms box or a sack with gold, for repentance has specifically created a boundless space, and as a consequence the religious contradiction: simultaneously to be out on 70,000 fathoms of water and yet be joyful… No wonder, then, that one fears it, for if one gives it a finger it takes the whole hand… In repentance there is the impulse of the motion, and therefore everything is reversed. This impulse signifies precisely the difference between the esthetic and the religious as the difference between the external and the internal (476-477).

Unlike the first and second stages, the religious offers fulfillment of the self, specifically through the act of repentance. However, repentance is no easy task; it forces the individual to acknowledge the failings not only in themselves but in the seeming world around them, not the paradise that awaits them. In this way, committing to the religious stage becomes comparable to acknowledging the absurd – or at least a form of the absurd: the world around the individual – the one experienced everyday – is fleeting and filled with falsehoods. Meaning in life cannot come from its aesthetic pleasures or an invested ethical venture; meaning can only come from God and the world beyond. Once the individual can acknowledge this, he or she can come to terms with his or her existential anxiety. By placing faith in God and repenting for one’s wrongdoing, one, through the grace of God, is guaranteed a place in Heaven and therefore, everlasting life.

The Meaning of the Man on a Swing

However, in Akira Kurosawa’s film, Ikiru, Kanji Watanabe does not repent and devote the remainder of his life to the Christian God or any other god. Although God is briefly mentioned in the film – primarily through expressions, such as “Oh my God” – Ikiru never commits to a fully Kierkegaardian narrative. By ignoring the religious stage, Kurosawa opens the door to a potential, secular meaning for life – beyond the promise of a paradise or existence in another reality altogether. By the end of Ikiru, Watanabe remains in a version of the ethical stage but finds solace through committing his life to a single, worthy cause: the proposed playground from the beginning of the film.

At his final dinner with Toyo, Watanabe faces the need for something greater, something more than the ethical mantle he has taken to make her life better, something that makes him feel alive. In desperation, he begs her in a rant to divulge the secret of living:

What makes you so lively? You’re just so full of life. That’s why I – That’s why this mummy envies you! Before I die, even if only for one day, I want to be like that. Until I’ve done that, I can’t let myself die. You see I just... I just want something to – I want to do something. I just don’t know what. But you know. No, maybe you don’t, but… Tell me, how can I be like you? (Ikiru).

Stunned, Toyo simply replies, “But all I do is work and eat!” (Ikiru). Watanabe tries to push her, tries to force the answer out of her, but she gives him nothing. She simply pulls out a toy from the factory where she works, insisting her life is no more than piecing them together.

However, Toyo does not see it negatively; she sees her work as “making friends with every baby in Japan.” So she asks him, “Why don’t you try making something too?” (Ikiru). For a moment, Watanabe sits distraught, thinking of the unaccomplished bureaucracy of his office job – until light glimmers in his eyes. Suddenly Watanabe is upright, exclaiming, “No… it’s not too late. It’s not hopeless. Even there, there’s something I can do. I just have to find the will” (Ikiru). He grabs the fluffy bunny toy and hurries out the restaurant, repeating, “There’s something I can do,” as the party people from across the restaurant sing, “Happy Birthday,” symbolizing his rebirth. The next day at the office, Watanabe is in high spirits, committed to doing his something. The other men are astonished to see him, not just back behind his desk but with enthusiasm. As the tune of “Happy Birthday” returns, Watanabe explains that they must come together with other departments to get the playground built, but as he is walking out of his office, the film jumps to his funeral three months later.

At the wake, the men reflect on Watanabe and his life, specifically the last three months where he committed himself to building the playground. In their discussion, they recount how the playground came to be and how Watanabe is directly responsible. As their words flow, so do the drinks, and the men in their intoxication conclude Watanabe knew he was going to die, which is why he commit himself to that venture.

After committing to live their lives by his example, a policeman arrives and fills them in on the last moments of the life of Kanji Watanabe. The Policeman states, “It was 10:00. No – Nearly 11:00. He was on the swing even though it was snowing… But he seemed to be so perfectly happy. I can’t explain it. He poured his whole heart into that song of his with a haunting voice that filled the depths of my soul” (Ikiru). Just then, Kurosawa transports the viewer to the scene described: Watanabe swinging in the snow upon the playground he created. Despite the cold and his impending death, Watanabe sings with a smile that familiar song from scenes before: “Life is brief – Fall in love, maidens – Before the crimson bloom – Fades from your lips – Before the tides of passion – Cool within you – For those of you – Who know no tomorrow” (Ikiru).

In his final scene in Ikiru, Kanji Watanabe has found existential peace. He has made a mends with death and is willing to embrace it. There, in a playground of his own creation, he accepts the inevitable consequence of life – happily. It was not religion that gave him an answer, nor ethics or aesthetics. While his playground was undoubtedly a work of aesthetic beauty and an ethical venture in helping his community, Watanabe was no longer working within either of Kierkegaard’s first two stages. In the ethical, as mentioned, the individual pours out and is eventually emptied. By the end of his life, Watanabe is the opposite; he is fulfilled. His free choice to make the playground gave him meaning and left a piece of himself behind for the children of Japan to enjoy. He dies no longer facing existential anxiety because he made a choice for himself to make the world around him a better place, and in doing so, it satisfies him enough to give life meaning and let go of his denial of death.

Sartre’s Argument to Live Free, Die At Ease

French existential, Jean-Paul Sartre, wrestled with his own existential anxiety throughout his life and more importantly in his works, ranging from books of philosophy to plays. While his view on the meaning to life changed as he aged, he wrote constantly on the subject, and in doing so, provided a view that would support Kurosawa’s existential message in Ikiru. In his 1946 lecture, “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” Sartre addressed several critiques toward the field while also outlining his view on existence itself. On the topic of man in relation to existence, Sartre stated:

What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing – as he wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism (Sartre).

Most things in life have a purpose. A tool is created with a specific job in mind; therefore, a tool’s essence – to complete whatever the job – precedes its existence. However, since existentialism does not accept the concept of God, there is no one to will the essence of a human before his or her existence. Therefore, humans exist without an essence, and in doing so, life becomes a journey to seek that essence. This is not only the cause of existential anxiety but a call to solve it, to will oneself into whatever one desires. Though this means there is no objective meaning to life, no true goal to accomplish, it opens the door to the possibility of fulfilling one’s life by oneself.

In his famed work from 1943, Being and Nothingness, Sartre expands upon the idea of existence preceding essence and what it means for humanity. Within it, Sartre also argues for the existence of free will. Both concepts – freewill and existence before essence – form the crux of his view on meaning in life, despite his seemingly pessimistic work in existentialism. In it, Sartre states, “Life has no meaning a priori … It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose” (Sartre 235). Despite some who may find the lack of inherent meaning in life condemning or depressing, in this instance, Sartre sees it as promising. Though life withholds its own, numerous challenges, it nevertheless presents itself to the individual not just as an open book but one filled with blank pages. Within it, the individual becomes the author: writing his or her own story, applying the themes, and supplying oneself with meaning. In the absence of truth with a capital “T,” one can create a personal, distinctive truth, providing purpose in uncertainty.

In Ikiru, Kanji Watanabe – by the end of his existential search for meaning – does exactly this. Aesthetics fail. Ethics also fail. And he is left not craving an afterlife but something to do before he dies, something to make him feel alive. So Watanabe commits to building the playground. After a lifetime in the office of Public Works – where there is never any public work done – he disrupts the system for those three, final months. Despite the shrinking window of opportunity, he successfully subverts the useless system from which he has profited and done something wonderful for his neighbors, his fellow man.

Perhaps religion could have fulfilled Watanabe, as Kierkegaard recommends, but this is not the path he takes. The path he takes is that of Jean-Paul Sartre: in the absence of meaning, he creates it. He gives himself a goal – his life an objective, and in doing so, Kanji Watanabe dies smiling, dies knowing he has contributed something to this world. That is enough for him, and that is all that matters.

Conclusion: Live, Just Live

Although Kanji Watanabe’s story ends contentedly in Ikiru, the film itself does not, serving as a reminder for every viewer. By the end of his wake, Watanabe’s colleagues – after realizing that Watanabe knew he was going to die and had the playground built before his passing – commit themselves to living like him: challenging the system and working for the people. Yet, as the film comes to a close, the men are presented with another opportunity to do something wonderful, and they do nothing. Among them, one bold man stands, asking them if they have forgotten, but as the stares of his friends pierce through his noble intentions, the man slowly sinks behind a mountain of paperwork, conforming back to his old ways.

This bleak ending ultimately suggests that truly living only comes from a fear of dying; however, as the opening monologue of the film suggests, this should not be the case. Akira Kurosawa makes it clear throughout the film that one should not frantically pursue meaning as a response to death; they should always be living freely, openly, lovingly, but most importantly, in a way that gives the individual a sense of purpose, as exemplified by Kanji Watanabe. Though there may be a multitude of ways to live or simply view existence, whether through the stance of Soren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, or Akira Kurosawa, one must find a way to live, a way to be. If not, one does not live; one merely waltzes through life to the tune of the society. We must all learn to live or learn to find a way to live, lest we end up like a more unfortunate version of Kanji Watanabe.

Works Cited:

Biography.com Editors. “Akira Kurosawa.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 22 Apr. 2016, www.biography.com/people/akira-kurosawa-9370236.

Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. Penguin Books, 2013.

Ebert, Roger. “Ikiru Movie Review & Film Summary (1952) | Roger Ebert.” RogerEbert.com, 29 Sept. 1996, www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-ikiru-1952.

Kainz, Howard P. “Kierkegaard's ‘Three Stages’ and the Levels of Spiritual Maturity.” The Modern Schoolman, vol. 52, no. 4, pp. 359–380.

Kierkegaard, Soren. Either/or: A Life Fragment. Penguin Books, 2004.

Kierkegaard, Soren. Stages on Life's Way: Kierkegaard's Writings. Vol. 11, Princeton University Press, 1988.

Kurosawa, Akira, and Shinobu Hashimoto. Ikiru. Toho Co., Ltd., 1952.

“Mark Twain Quotes.” BrainyQuote, Xplore, www.brainyquote.com/quotes/mark_twain_104444.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. Routledge, 2007.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Existentialism Is a Humanisn.” Marxists.org. www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm.

Simpson, David. “Albert Camus.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/camus/#SSH5cvii.