Kurosawa's final film moves away from the experimental landscapes of Dreams and the battlefields of Ran to present a more realistic, humanist tale of a teacher's autumnal days. A tribute to the life and thoughts of teacher and novelist Hyakken Uchida (1889–1971), a key figure in Japan, Madadayo is also a celebration of Kurosawa's own great mentors, the filmmaker Kajiro Yamamoto and primary-school teacher Seiji Tachikawa, who taught him how to paint. Moving from birthday parties to wartime bombing raids and sudden tragedies, the creation of art and the celebration of life, Kurosawa invests the film with a grace and serenity befitting his own status as a master who has lived long and well, and is now comfortable with whatever life has in store. The film's title references Uchida's birthday “toasts” to, and rejection of, death, and recalls an old children's game of hide-and-seek: “Are you ready?” they say. “Madadayo . . . Not yet.”