Italy, 1952
"IKIRU"
Japan, 1952
Kanji: "You - just to look at you makes me feel better. It warms this mummy's heart of mine. And you're so kind to me. ... You're so young, so healthy. ... You're so full of life. And me, I'm jealous of that. If I could be like you for just one day before I died. I won't be able to die unless I can do that. I want to do something. Only you can show me. I don't know what to do. I don't know how. Maybe you don't know either, but please, if you can, show me how to be like you!"
Toyo: "But all I do is work and eat..."
Kanji: "And what else?"
Toyo: "That's all! I mean it...all I do is make these little things. Even making these is so much fun. Making them, I feel like I'm playing with every baby in Japan. Why don't you try making something, too?"
Toyo then places one of the toy bunnies on the table, and it hops across. In doing so, she has given Kanji the answer he so desperately needs. She is totally oblivious to this, despite her happiness, because she sees less than he does. In a way, her happiness prevents her from seeing. And it is only through his newfound melancholy that Kanji can understand anything Toyo has said.
When asked to pick a favorite book of the Bible, I usually choose Genesis, because I earnestly believe the rest of the Bible is just a reiteration of Genesis. But in all honesty, the one book I've read the most, and the book I probably love the most, is Ecclesiastes. I've yet to read anything, in any language, from any religion, that really compares to it. Herman Melville called it "the fine hammered steel of woe," but for all its despair it remains the one book in Scripture that most clearly and truthfully shows us the reality of life.
This week's column is the first of two in which will examine the worldview of Ecclesiastes in film. I've chosen three films that illuminate the central themes of Ecclesiastes: the first two are Akira Kurosawa's "Ikiru" (lit: "To Live") and Vittorio De Sica's "Umberto D." These are films that address the question of "How do we live?" Next week, I'll examine a film that addresses the question of "Why should we live?"
Both "Ikiru" and "Umberto D" were released in 1952, in nations that had suffered humiliating defeats in the Second World War. After a firebombing that decimated Tokyo and the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagoski, Japan faced a long and grueling reconstruction. The nation which had spent the previous half-century building the strongest military in the East was forced to disarm and redefine itself. Japan was quickly and uncomfortably Westernized, and the loss of many millennia-old traditions was visible within a matter of years. Italy, meanwhile, faced a decade of economic hardships. Though a new government was quickly and successfully established, the transition from Fascism to democracy was difficult. Social turmoil continued for years, and poverty was common.
These environments proved fertile soil for cinema, and from postwar Japan and Italy came some of the greatest films ever made. These films deal with the social, moral, and spiritual dilemmas facing the downtrodden nations. They are often critical of the societal structure and establishment, and skeptical of everything from human perception to the meaning of life. In short, they coincide on many points with the book of Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes has traditionally been attributed to King Solomon, and for good reason. The author, who vaguely identifies himself as Qoheleth (or "the assembler of sayings"), adopts the king's persona early in the text. In the Bible, Solomon was the wisest man to ever live, and is traditionally believed to have authored much of Proverbs, in which he writes: "The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead."
Kanji, the hero of "Ikiru," almost certainly lives among "the dead." According to the narrator (who speaks in a cold, objective voice), Kanji "just drifts through life. In fact, he's barely alive." Before we meet Kanji, the narrator informs us that he has stomach cancer - the film's opening shot is an X-ray, revealing his condition. We cut to Kanji, who looks older than his 53 years. He has worked his entire life as a city clerk, and has little or nothing to show for it. We see written proposals in his bottom drawer, products of a younger, innovative, more ambitious Kanji, now used for scratch-paper. This all changes when Kanji learns of his condition. He is forced to look back on his life, and what he sees is not nearly as upsetting as what he doesn't see: purpose, meaning, satisfaction. "I just can't die," he protests. "I don't know what I've been living for all these years!" He has only a few months to find out. At first, he takes the approach taken by Qoheleth, and seeks life's meaning in earthly pleasures. He has never before taken comfort in alcohol, but upon discovering his fate, he drinks too much. He meets a young man whose live is consumed by the sort of pleasures Kanji has denied himself. The man, impressed with Kanji's story, is forced to consider his own life anew, and takes Kanji out for a night on the town.
Naturally, Kanji finds nothing in wine and women. But during his revelries he sings a once popular Japanese song that further establishes "Ikiru" within the thematic tradition of Ecclesiastes:
"Life is so short
Fall in love, dear maiden
While your lips are still red
And before you are cold
For there will be no tomorrow."
I could as easily imagine Umberto Domenico Ferrari, the hero of "Umberto D.," singing this song. He is wiser than Kanji, though Kanji will eventually arrive in a place more advanced than Umberto. When we leave Kanji, he is dead; Umberto is still alive at the end of "Umberto D.," and has time to learn the lessons that Kanji sped through in his last few months.
If Kanji is Qoheleth during the phase of discovery, Umberto is Qoheleth arrived, having discovered life's true nature (if not its purpose) and stepping back in reflection. De Sica famously held back from producing "Umberto D." until he discovered Carlo Battisti, the only man who could have played the title role. Battisti's eyes reflect a sad understanding, a profound depth and meloncholy coupled with wisdom. He seems small and foolish to those around him, but upon close examination we find this smallness and foolishness to be a carefully constructed disguise. Umberto understands the world, and the people in it.
He has already learned the lessons Qoheleth describes in Ecclesiastes. He knows that true happiness can be found in one's work, and struggles to occupy himself (he has been forced into retirement at a time when Italians everywhere desperately seek work). He knows that two is always better than one, so he keeps his loyal dog, Flag, always beside him. (When he briefly contemplates suicide, he tries to find a new companion for Flag...he knows that no one should be alone in the world.) He knows that the wicked propser why the righteous are punished, so he doesn't protest as his wicked landlady grows more wealthy, while misfortune seems inevitable for her kindly maid, Maria. He knows genuine satisfaction can be found in little things, and takes advantage of a public ward that offers clean sheets and warm meals (if he has to feign sickness to get in, he doesn't seem to mind).But by the film's end, Umberto, for all his understanding, doesn't seem to have transcended anything. He is content, yes; but is contentment all the wisdom of Qoheleth has to offer? I don't believe so. For that, we must look to Kanji, at the end of "Ikiru." Perhaps it's Kanji's struggle with mortality that brings his journey full circle, to the final chapters of Ecclesiastes, where mere understanding converges with transcendence.
Kanji befriends Toyo, a young woman with whom he's worked for many years. She has now quit her job in the clerk's office, seeking a life beyond government bureaucracy - she's found a job in a toy factory, where she produces small, hopping bunnies for children. The intense pleasure she takes in her work (and in all aspects of her life) inspires both curiosity and envy in Kanji.
Kanji's children are shocked and dismayed by their father's sudden interest in this younger woman. Even Toyo doesn't know how to interpret the old man's attention. Only the audience and Kanji understand...he isn't interested in her romantically, nor even as a friend and companion. Kanji has discovered in Toyo someone who not only lives life, but enjoys it very much. Kanji wants to learn how. He wants her, not as a friend, but as a teacher.
But Toyo is no teacher, even if Kanji is an attentive student. She cannot explain why she enjoys life; she only knows that she does. When he presses her, she refers him to the small, hopping bunnies she manufactures at work. Something clicks with Kanji - he has discovered life's purpose, not in how much one enjoys it, nor in the degree to which one is content, but rather in what one produces for others. The purpose of life is not to endure or to enjoy, but to serve.
Who do we serve? Qoheleth says we must serve God, that we must fear Him and obey Him. But what does this mean? Christ teaches that whatever we do for "the least of these," we do unto Him. However one interprets service to God, it usually entails service to others. And this is precisely what Kanji discovers by the film's end, and devotes his remaining months to a service that ultimately becomes his salvation.
