Kurusawa was a genius!

TCM is celebrating the 100th birthday of the legendary Japanes director Akira Kurusawa. The man was a genius. I watched most of Ikiru (1952), a story of a bureaucrat who learns he has cancer and six months to live. He is determined to leave a legacy. In anyone else's hands it would be a forgettable movie. Kurusawa turned it into gold.

It isn't necessarily the story bu the way it was told. Most of the movie is spent with Watanabe (the protagonist) trying to relearn how to live life. Once he decides to get the city to build a park the mvie jumps to his wake and the rest of the story is told in flashbacks from the bureaucrats at the wake as they slowly come to realize just what he did and what he risked.

See it if you can. See any others you can see too.