Living: A worthy remake, if a bit more detached.

by Rob Ryan

When Akira Kurosawa wrote Ikiru back in 1951, he was partly inspired by Leo Tolstoy's Novella "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" which saw a Russian social climber suffering a terminal illness start to question whether or not he has lived a fulfilling life. This story has been analysed as a case study of what it's like to live without meaning. Where you are defined by others around you and what little work you do in your high power position, Kurosawa took the basic premise of this story and applied it to the decay of Japanese family life and the ineffectiveness of Japanese bureaucracy and instead of the protagonist being a wealthy aristocrat, he is now a regular ordinary man who did everything right to maintain his attendance record at the expense of his own personal happiness.

These facts and more make Oliver Hermanus's film not completely unjustified as the film makes an interesting experiment, taking the screenplay of the original film and reimagining it with a completely new setting with a different culture but the basic premise and themes are still intact, what is now Japan is now 50s London. Much like its predecessor Living follows a man (Bill Nighy) who is only referred to by his friends and colleagues as "Mr Williams" and much like Kenji Watanabe, Williams works in a government office stacking up his skyscraper with petitions and other public lobbying requests that will never be passed on. One day, he learns that he has no more than 6 months to live due to a cancer diagnosis and as a result falls into an existential crisis as he can't remember the last time he was fully happy. He has a son Michael (Barney Fishwick) but he and his wife seem to only care about his retirement pension than himself, he was happily married to a woman but she died 30 years ago and since then he has been living an unremarkable and monotonous existence as he drones on day to day doing the only thing he knows how to do, stack up and occasionally stamp with approval.

One of the more noteworthy innovations of this version is how the film applies the dull lifestyle of bureaucracy with the cold body language of the British gentleman. This is a point that is conveyed perfectly in the film's earliest moment when Peter Wakeling (Alex Sharp) a new man on his first day greets his fellow co-workers on the platform on the way to work, his enthusiasm for his new job is immediately is met with dismissal and a sneer as he is informed that social interaction is not something they partake in very often, especially waiting for the train. Wakeling as a character is the film's most interesting addition to this new version, as Williams is old and closer to retirement, Wackling is young and about to fill in his footsteps as he soon learns what his position entails by walking with a group of angry women pushing for a new playground to be built on an old bomb site through the building, each department including construction, parks and others, insists that the matter is not in their control and it all leads back to his department who are unwilling to do anything.

Wakeling as a character almost works from an audience point of view as he is the first character who's introduced before Williams and as he learns how inefficient his job really is, he is given an opportunity to lead by example as Williams much like Wantanabe in the original is given a new lease of life and decides to do his job by following through on the playground in spite other departments working against him.

Other than the setting, however, this is the only note-worthy change from the original that truly stands out and the film mostly plays the original point-by-point almost to a T but that doesn't make it any less profound and effective. The film is grandly produced almost replicating the aesthetic of 50's Ealing movies while never feeling like an exact copy of those films, the music by Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch is subtle and purposeful and never feel inappropriate or overbearing and the supporting players perfectly capture the characteristics of the original film while still making the roles their own, The standouts being Tom Burke as the charismatic and brash novelist who Williams offer's his sleeping pills to deal with his insomnia not before opening up to him about his illness and being taken on a night on the town by the said novelist in order to give him the opportunity to start living again, and Amie Lou Wood as a young female subordinate who's eager for him to come back to work just so she can hand in her resignation, she is also the one who gives him the nickname "Mr Zombie" much like Toyo's nickname for Wantanabe "The Mummy"

Lou Wood's bright and lively performance is a perfect reflection of the qualities that make her fascinating to an old man like Williams who constantly lives in seemingly constant free spirit and with a bright and joyous smile even though there is nothing remarkable to her about how she lives her daily life. It maybe could have been a small commentary on the way in which men and women are socialised, with women being expected to be happy-go-lucky and put on a happy face and men being cold and quiet all the way through.

If there is one thing that is lacking compared to the original is the central performance, This is not to say that Bill Nighy gave a bad performance but there is a real lack of clarity to what the character is thinking and feeling and Nighy mostly potray's the role with a monotone and quiet voice, rarely letting the tears flow with the exception of a few well done scenes (most notable being the films recreation of the bar scene where he sings his heart out) while you could argue that this is intentional choice as he has been trained not to let his emotions be free due to it being ungentelmanly, it does make the audience feel slightly more detached from the protagonist compared to the original, Takashi Shimura portrayed Kenji as a emotional wreck and as a result it puts the audience in the charecter's mind, his desperate plea to Toyo on how to be free spirit like her, the crying in bed as he reflects on his life and the look of fear in his face as the man in the doctor's waiting area explains to him the symptoms of stomach cancer, in Ikiru there is no doubt what Kenji is feeling at any given moment, whereas In Living Nighy feels a lot more laid back never fulling letting himself break free of his strict body language and way of being.

It should go without saying that Living is not as good as its predecessor but it wasn't trying to be. It's a film that mostly works on its own terms without cancelling out what came before, showing it through an entirely new and fresh set of lenses, amplifying the themes in a wider and broader social context and it's further proof that Ikiru is a universal story that transcends beyond cultures. I just wished it had a lead that was seemingly more emotionally in tune with his situation instead of being stoic for most of the runtime, but in spite of this and in spite of how other fans of Ikiru will take it. I do think overall when it's all said and done both films are worth watching.

Rating; 7/10

Living is not out in UK cinemas now