Ikiru

Showing, in a new print, at the centre of a season of must-see Japanese gems, Kurosawa’s depiction of the revelatory last days of an ageing Tokyo salaryman is one of the triumphs of humanist cinema. The superb Takashi Shimura is the lonely civil servant diagnosed with cancer: what begins with a study in gigantic pathos – in the style of Emil Jannings’s work for FW Murnau – richens and blossoms as a series of encounters open his eyes and heart. Kurosawa’s eclectic style is a delight: his striking, varied compositions reflecting the old man’s journey from darkness to some kind of light right until the moving finale.