The wonderful Ikiru is Akira Kurosawa at his most empathetic: emphasising life with death fast approaching. Takashi Shimura sublimely plays an elderly public servant with cancer looking for meaning during his final days.

Ikiru is part of our Summer program featuring 5 classics by Akira Kurosawa. Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Ran and High and Low will all screen this Summer. Check all dates here.

Kurosawa’s serene, deeply human study of loneliness when facing death takes ab empathetic look at what it means to be alive. Ikiru is more than a film title, it can be translated as ‘living’ or ‘living your life’. In Ikiru, a terminally ill public servant wonder show he can give his life meaning and impact now that death is fast approaching.