I think the "sadness" cherry on top of the movie is that... he died for nothing, in the end no one decided to keep their promise and work hard...
But well, at least now we know japaneses are all workaholic and efficient, haha.
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EL GATO
+++SPOILER+++
Not quite nothing. At least there was the playground.
PUNK IS NOT DED
The protagonist's plan was to build a park for these children. The final shot in the movie with all the kids playing in the playground pretty much seals the deal on how he was able to turn his life around and make a difference anyways.
His goal in the first place was never to make these bureaucrat act like he did. And let me also add that despite those bureaucrats going back to do doing their office work like nothing had happened. We are shown some characters who are still affected by the protagonist's death and will probably learn to act upon his actions.
So no, he did die for something.
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That's to miss the artistic point of the final scene. Goodness survives, and may only be assessed, per individual, and they are very few who learn much from the experience of their elders.
sharepart of where you're wrong has been explained but also the seed has been planted in that one man who stood up at the office and was at the park at the end. and i think we're meant to think that he will be one to do something.
i went back and watched those last two bits - at the office when he sits back down, he is indeed obscured completely by the mountains of paperwork and the light bulb is out of frame. it's too late for him, at least to do something where he works (idk his position but he isn't the head of a dept. like watanabe was and there's a long line ahead of him. no power and no authority) but the last scene is him standing on the bridge above the park watching the kids play. his job is a dead end so his hope has to lie outside of it, perhaps with those very children. become a teacher? or more likely he'll start his own family and hopefully not succumb to the same pitfalls watanabe did and raise his own kids to be better than his coworkers.
at heart, he's one of the good ones, he's the one that starts The Talk about watanabe at the wake, the rest are all completely drunk and jump on the weeping wagon together and they're mourning out of their asses. there was a line near the beginning of the movie that i think the narrator said, something along the lines of "the only way to get anywhere in this business is to do nothing / protect yourself" and this is reiterated several times throughout the film. when those other guys are sober, they continue to act only in their self interest.
I forget the name of The Guy (TG) i'm talking about, but his coworkers are all set in their ways and he's the only one who wants good, actual change. and i like to believe he will. kurosawa does tend to lean more towards the humanist / optimistic that way, no?
Dying for nothing... been known to happen. And it's happening again.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
the film illustrates that no one who lives a natural life dies for nothing. humans are part of a interconnected network, all actions have an impact.
shareThere was a park to show for it at the end.
It's that man again!!