Madadayo: Viewer Comments

Viewer Comments:
Madadayo
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by Jeffrey Frawley

This is a beautiful, life-affirming coda to Akira Kurosawa's lifelong pursuit of beauty and humanism.

An aging professor's grown students visit him each year on his birthday, and each year they playfully quiz him on whether it is time for him to go. Each year he responds that he is not yet ready--there is still so much to cherish in the world.

It would be gratifying to think Kurosawa carried this optimism throughout his own eighty eight years, but he reportedly fell into a deep depression when his declining eyesight and increasing frailty ended his life of filmmaking. This marvelous film staved off the black dog for some time.

This film tells the story of professor Uehida Hyakken-sama (1889-1971), in Gotemba, around the forties. He was a university professor until an air raid, when he left to become a writer and has to live in a hut. His mood has hardly changed, not by the change nor by time. Every year his students celebrate his birthday, issuing the question "Mahda kai?" (not yet?), just to hear Uehida-san's answer "Madada yo!" (No, not yet!), in a ritual of self affirmation, and desires of lasting forever. It's a very "japanese" film who portrays everyday life and customs in Japan.

by George

Like the beautiful rainbow sky in the final scenes of "Madadayo", this film is a perfectly measured and exquisitely photographed end to Akira Kurosawa's career. No other director could have handled such a delicate subject as old age and community love. This is a simple film, really, yet in it's gentle presentation are several very poignant ideas concerning warm- heartedness, relationships and community. One of the most competent films of the 1990's.

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