A life well lived?
In general I don’t review films (there are already too many outlets doing so), but I cannot pass commenting on ‘Living’, the remake by Oliver Hermanus of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 ‘Ikiru’; scripted by Kazuo Ishiguro and staring Bill Nighy.
Although Kurosawa’s films do translate out of Japanese, often successfully, Ikuro is a small masterpiece and I would have thought untranslatable (although, like so many of Kurasawa’s films it does have a Western source, in Tolstoy’s ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’). But I was wrong. Set in 1952 England (and indeed the LCC) it carries all the poignancy of Ikuru – and in a way all its Japanese sensibilities, whilst being wholly true to its British milieu. Much credit for this goes of course to Ishiguro, but also, and especially, to Nighy, whose British ‘button-down-ness’ segues, in the end, to an almost Zen-like state. Whilst Nighy is always watchable – indeed in some films the only watchable element – this is a masterclass in screen acting, the tiniest touches conveying volumes. If you like Kurosawa (I really do) this film will not disappoint; whilst being wholly true to its original in tone and intent, it is still an individual work of art. Just one point however – although the script demands that Local Government planning in 1952 should be stultifyingly pointless, obstructive and unproductive, to give Nighy a windmill to tilt at; in fact, in the 1950s and 60s, local planners (and exactly planning in the relevant East and South East parts of London) were almost reckless in their desire to eradicate ‘slums’ – to the extent that they removed both buildings and communities in a way Hitler and Göring could only dream of. There still wouldn’t have been a playground, but there would have been a High Rise in its place, and the ladies petitioning would have been moved out to Essex willy-nilly. Despite this (and there are more important truths in the film) I would readily advocate seeing. this film; I cannot believe that it will not get Oscar nominations.