TEHRAN-The 1952 Japanese tragedy film “Ikiru” (“To Live”) directed by Akira Kurosawa will be shown at the Iranian Artists Forum (IAF) in Tehran on Thursday. 

The film screening will start at 6 p.m. at the Nasseri Hall of the IAF. The 140-minute movie will be presented with Persian subtitle, Mehr reported.

The film examines the struggles of a terminally ill Tokyo bureaucrat (played by Takashi Shimura) and his final quest for meaning. The screenplay was partly inspired by Leo Tolstoy's 1886 novella “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”.

One of the greatest achievements by Kurosawa, “Ikiru” shows the director at his most compassionate—affirming life through an exploration of death. Shimura beautifully portrays Kanji Watanabe, an aging bureaucrat with stomach cancer who is impelled to find meaning in his final days. Presented in a radically conceived two-part structure and shot with a perceptive, humanistic clarity of vision, “Ikiru” is a multifaceted look at what it means to be alive.

The film's major themes include learning how to live, the inefficiency of bureaucracy, and decaying family life in Japan, which have been the subject of analysis by academics and critics.

“Ikiru” is a well-acted and deeply moving humanist tale about a man facing his own mortality, one of legendary director Akira Kurosawa's most intimate films.

Having won awards for Best Film at the Kinema Junpo and Mainichi Film Awards, it is considered one of the greatest films of all time.

Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 30 feature films in a career spanning six decades. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dynamic style strongly influenced by Western cinema yet distinct from it. He was involved with all aspects of film production. In 1990, he accepted the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. 

SS/SAB