Living is less a remake of Ikiru than it is a translation. It’s as though screenwriter and internationally acclaimed novelist Kazuo Ishiguro just took the 1952 Kurosawa masterpiece and sketched over the Japanese characters with British ones, the Japanese dialogue with English. It could perhaps be criticized for skewing too close, for attempting so vividly to recreate, in some cases down to the set dressing and shot compositions, a movie that to many is untouchable. And I can’t say I don’t partly share that sentiment. Ikiru is such a precious film, one that fully deserves its place in the canon of the greatest of all time -it is one of the most soulful, most beautiful, most blisteringly life-affirming movie experiences, how could anyone presume to repurpose it?
But watching Living I realized just how out of time and place Ikiru is -it feels legitimately like a story that has always existed, and thus one that deserves to be retold. It’s more versatile than I thought and can suit an English setting as well as a Japanese one. This is perhaps unsurprising, Kurosawa’s film was of course itself loosely based on Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich. But it’s worth noting even the breadth of his particular vision, fundamentally just a story of discovering purpose in life and what can be left behind.
I think Ishiguro, who grew up in Britain but maintained cultural ties to his parents’ Japan, as expressed through some of his books, was uniquely suited to writing this movie. The fact that his most famous work, The Remains of the Day, is also about a sad, old Englishman, probably helps too. And its director Oliver Hermanus, who’s never made a film outside of South Africa, may be well-qualified for it as well. Though the movie is steeped in a white English context, there’s a stark distance in its’ observation that is beneficial to the story and its universal themes. It is not like a lot of homemade British dramas of a similar ilk, and that should be palpable to anyone who’s seen many movies featuring Living’s star.
Bill Nighy plays Mr. Williams, the dreary Public Works bureaucrat at the centre of the film whose terminal diagnosis results in a solemnly mournful existential crisis -realizing too late what little he’s made of his life. Nighy is a tremendously talented actor, but he has played several “Mr. Williamses” in his career -especially of late: bland, upper-crust Englishmen who exist in the background of other peoples’ more interesting stories. And usually they are in dramas that aren’t especially ambitious, like Their Finest, The Bookshop, and Hope Gap. So here he seems perfectly matched to the material -a very ordinary-looking weary, lanky old English gentleman. Yet that’s sort of the key to what makes his performance, and even the movie itself work as well as it does. Nighy has formidable shoes to fill -Takashi Shimura’s performance of this part in Ikiru is debatably one of the greats of world cinema, certainly it’s a personal favourite of mine. Though Nighy does have something Shimura didn’t -and that’s age. While the Japanese actor was in his late 40s playing 60s, Nighy is 73 and brings the full gravity of his age to the part in an affecting way. Through much of the movie he wears the face of a man who’s been emotionally sapped down to a husk -”Mr.Zombie” as he eventually learns is his nickname around the office. And Nighy plays with a silent but gutting pain the slow realization he’s lived so long but carries so few experiences of joy or pleasure or satisfaction in what he’s done for the world. It’s so empathetic, so raw and powerful that it blew away most of my cynicism for the movie itself, and rather than dread its attempts to recreate scenes from Ikiru I looked forward to them. Nighy’s drunken lamenting rendition of “The Rowan Tree” as this films’ equivalent to “Gondola no Uta” is played more as beautiful than its sad predecessor but it maintains a mournful power. As does its reprise in the iconic swing scene, more polished and artificial perhaps, but sufficiently lovely.
The adaptation is so direct that it’s all the more curious to note the places and the choices by Ishiguro and Hermanus that are different or distinct. While there are several shots and angles designed to mimic the original film, Hermanus’s flow and atmosphere is entirely its’ own. There is a very palpable sombreness pervading the film from even before Mr. Williams learns of his diagnosis: the grim, slow-motion shots of Williams in a throng of indistinguishable businessmen, the dreary look of the office and lack of colour in his work life. And one very interesting scene alone at home that conveys a brief tragedy for a long-dead wife while images from his bright past are juxtaposed within the bleak present. There’s enough individuality to these and other choices that one appreciates the restraint shown towards trademark Kurosawa devices -like wipe transitions, of which there are a mere few. In terms of the plotting, Ishiguro adjusts details more than anything, taking Williams through his nightlife odyssey, accompanied by Tom Burke as his bohemian companion, to an old English pub and a striptease show; and later waylaying the young Miss Harris (Aimee Lou Wood) at an arcade claw crane.
Her portrayal is very fascinating -the lively young woman in need of Williams’ sign-off on her resignation to whom he becomes dependent on in his desperation to feel. Living deals more opaquely with the impropriety of the relationship that develops between the two of them -with gossip even reaching Williams’ son and his wife (who live with him in one of the less applicable bits of cultural translation). And yet Miss Harris is warmer than her predecessor -her feelings towards Williams, even if they may be of pity, are honest. She has little doubt of his intentions, despite being burdened by him, and shows sincere sympathy towards his condition when it is revealed. There’s sentiment wrapped up in their chapters, maybe a touch too much -but it’s presented with a sensibility unequivocally British.
Ishiguro perhaps deserves more credit for subtly infusing the story with a British character, for as much as it retains that of its’ origins. The dialogue is in fact more than just pasted from the original, it is smart and precise to the period and manner of the figures at hand -at times demonstrating that same kind of poetic diction I so enjoy reading in older British texts. Even without the inspired source, it certainly feels like the work of a man who has won a Nobel prize in Literature.
The one thing that does feel a little arbitrary is the choice to set the film in the 1950s. If the point is to prove the universality of a story like Ikiru, a modern context might be more interesting -and I certainly think it could work and be welcome, especially in our current climate of existential hopelessness. Perhaps though that is just another caution by Ishiguro and Hermanus, clearly wary of straying too far from Ikiru. Living is limited for this, but it does well regardless -managing to capture the soul of its’ story in a familiar but distinct enough way. And being anchored by a career-best Bill Nighy performance isn’t bad either. I wouldn’t want this film to become the lazy persons’ Ikiru: a “good enough” replacement for folks who won’t watch a Japanese black and white movie. The original still offers way more than this movie ever could and in fact I think it compliments Living to see Ikiru. Remaking a masterpiece is a tall and heavy order though, usually there’s no good reason for it. I applaud Living for making its’ case, and making it remarkably well.
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