Compare and Contrast Two Movies - Essay Example

Compare and contrast two movies The film Amelie by Jean Pierre talks about a young lady who acts as a shy waitress in France city of Paris. The lady has dedicated most of her life in helping the people around her, to improve their lives despite the problems she faces in isolation. The film informs us about how she lost her parents, and because of these become forced into some isolation. This enabled her posses an active mind that managed to keep her of the isolation thoughts. She helps a man who works as a painter reunite back with his family.

She also manages to help the man retrieve a childhood box that was full of his memories. She manages to see how the man gets moved by her actions making him shed tears. The movies are the same in the way they bring out the meaning of life. The films show us how the actors respond to whatever comes their way (Alan 15). According to Alan (15), it is true that men are fools who only realize the importance of life when faced with death. Ikiru is a story about a man, his life, family and work. Ikiru portrays the behaviors of a man that can have a positive impact and make his life till death meaningful.

Ikiru is a story about Kanji Watanabe, a poor government official serving as the Area Chief of Public Affairs at the region City Hall. His wife passed on couple years back, and he lives with his daughter in law and son. Nevertheless, he still lives a boring and lonely life and according to the narrator, the man has been dead for 20 years. One day, he becomes diagnosed with cancer of the stomach and realizes that he has six months left to live. In a bid to make the most out of his remaining days, he tours Tokyo’s nightclubs with a stranger he stumbles on at a bar.

Despite this he still finds little happiness. An example of a moving scene in Watanabe’s life takes place in these night club. He sits quietly and alone while young jovial couples dance around him happily. He goes and requests the pianist to play an old song, “Love is Brief.’ As the song gets played, He begins to sing. Everything going on around him stops as everybody tries to focus their attention on this old man singing tearfully. He later forms a relationship with a young co- worker who soon sees him as weird.

He then decides to change weighty things out of his boring and lonely life before he dies, by trying to turn a dirty community Cess pool into an efficient public park (Reed 13). Both movies show a number of ways in which the main actors tried to better the lives of the people around them. Amelie after helping Dominique find his lost childhood, she decides to help her friends, and other strangers around her give meaning to her lonely life. She gives help to the blind beggar, enabling him see what goes on in a familiar street, takes the glass man into her apartment building with the correct expression of the lady with the glass in his yearly Renoir reproductions; and also matches the cigarette vendor in the cafe she works to a stalker ex boyfriend of a different co- worker.

She also persuades her father not to give up his dream of touring the world and follow it. This she does by stealing her father’s garden gnome and giving it to an air hostess friend. The friend then sends a picture of it all over the world (Strozykowski 14). In the movie, when Watanabe decide to build the park, the movie jumps forward, and the rest of the story told in flashback. We get to see Watanabe’s co- workers talk about his complete change in attitude and perception, the boss becomes observed taking credit for the development of the park, even after the villagers insistence that it was Watanabe’s desire and passion that helped see the project through.

Nevertheless, it is through Watanabe’s hard work and desire that the park gets constructed. Even though, it was heartbreaking that He never told his son and daughter in law of his condition, it is evident that, in the final days of his life, he cared about the people (Reed 12). Watanabe's son and daughter-in-law become heartbroken when they reveal that Watanabe never told them that he was suffering from stomach cancer. The truth of Watanabe's extraordinary achievement becomes also distorted after his death.

Even the few number of workers who claim to be inspired by his altruism soon forgets it, and head back to meaninglessly filing papers at work (Reed 12). In conclusion, both actors showed how it is essential to value individual lives and those of the people around us. They both had problems in their lives but lived it out well at the end. People nevertheless should not just do right after they realize they are about to die but try to live their lives assisting people that require their help. Works Cited Alan, R.

The distinct Language of Imagination. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell Inc, 2000. Amelie. Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Perf. Audrey Tautou. 2001. Ikiru. Dir. Akira Kurosawa. Perf. Kanji Watanabe. 2000. Reed, Ron. "Ikiru." Soul food movies (2007): 12-13. Strozykowski, Michelle. "A look at the unconventional, romantic film Amelie." Foreign Films (2008): 14.