Ikiru, from Akira Kurosawa

From Andrew Bolt
This will mean little to those who haven’t seen Kurosawa’s splendid Ikiru (Choose Life), but excuse me if I indulge myself and others also touched by it.

Here the main protagonist, Watanabe, the civil servant who realised almost too late he’d lived his life as a barely-alive mummy, sings his goodbye.

I thought the song even more powerful in the earlier scene in the pick-up bar, but this reprise really is marvellous - song, scene and singer all.

The clip opens with a policeman who has crashed a wake for Watanabe telling how he last saw the man who’d become a hero to poor locals. The mourners, mostly senior public servants humbled by Watanabe, were trying to deride his legacy to save their self-respect, but are brought up short. And Watanabe’s son understands at last what his father couldn’t say and could now never share.

Well, the rest is in the film. The words to this 1915 hit tune:

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.