Akira Kurosawa made a lot of good films, some of which I once watched, but his rather famous film “Live” for some reason did not reach his hands, although many times I was going to. The film is based on the story of L. Tolstoy “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”. Some time ago, a film by British director Oliver Hermanus with the same name "Living" / Living, 2022, with Bill Nai (correctly - Nai) in the title role, which turned out to be a remake of Kurosawa's film, which is directly stated in the subtitles there, and as a screenwriter there is not anyone, but Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, in principle, the idea to shoot this film with Nai in the title role belongs to Ishiguro himself - he is an ethnic Japanese, who has lived since childhood in England, he can be sure enough to convey to the European viewer. A very elderly British official, Williams, learns that he is terminally ill, and the doctor gives him only a few months to live. He is a very private man, living with his son and his wife, his own wife died some time ago. He seems to want to share this with his son, but he does not dare, so at first he does not come up with anything better than to stock up on a large amount of sleeping pills and commit suicide, going to a small seaside town for this. There, he accidentally meets a local writer suffering from insomnia, about which he complains to the owner of the cafe, then Williams decides to give him his pills and he suddenly tells him about his trouble. They spend a couple of days in local drinking and entertainment establishments, then he returns home, but can not bring himself back to work. Some time passes, during which he manages to make friends with a girl who recently worked for him, he is attracted to her optimistic nature, this he now badly lacks. But someone saw them together and now gossip creeps, people only think of one thing. And then one day he gets inspired, he recalls the once-delayed application of three women who asked to set up a playground on the site of a bomb funnel (the case takes place in the early 50s), he returns to work and makes every effort to implement this idea. Finally, it happens and Williams dies. At first, his former colleagues even swear that they will continue his work with the same dedication, but alas, everything returns to normal. I liked the film, it is so leisurely, although the hero is running out of time, but even in these conditions he does not fuss, but just shows more perseverance where before he would have spent time, the actors were filmed good, especially, of course, Bill Nighy. And maybe it's a good thing I didn't see the original, I didn't have to compare it.
The common man reveals an extraordinary key to life.
The film is a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 drama of the same name. Director Oliver Hermanus brought the action of Japan to the UK of the 50s, which is reflected in the specific shooting in the style of films of the past era. The drama gradually covers the plot, and the position of the main character forces him to take a different look at life. The beautiful nature of Britain is intertwined with administration workers, who are like kites in pots, forming links of a single bureaucratic system. Systems of papers, signatures, seals, stamps.
On behalf of the new clerk Peter, we get acquainted with this system. Everything is verified, everything is emphasized, civil servants are similar to each other. It is the activity in the administration that demonstrates the constant sitting of clients in queues, the movement of complaints from department to department, the intricate competence of each department. This is the melancholy and monotonous narrative. The viewer is like clients who are waiting for problems to be solved, goes through all instances, affects all departments, while complaints move from one office to another. Bill Nighy appears as a “veteran” of this mechanism, a man who can simply let the paper be archived. Does this system resemble an administrative system? So in all bureaucratic cells, waiting for the deadlines for filing a complaint to eventually prepare a refusal.
The film specifically focuses on this moving of documents so that the newcomer can see what is going on inside. At this time, the thunderstorm and severity of Mr. Williams, played by Bill Nighy, opens the veil of his life so that we can see what a strict and decent man is from the inside. Some problems, others. The drama in the relationship with his son converges with a trip to the doctor to attribute the picture “Live” to such projects as “Until I played in the box” (2007), “Reach out to heaven” (1997). This is where the tape takes its second breath!
When there is little time left, the hero allows him to appreciate his revelation and real fear. But fear is not for the future, but for lost time. A chance encounter with a stranger in a cafe allowed him to look at life from a different angle. That's what sparks interest and excitement, even though the idea isn't new and pretty predictable. I haven't seen Kurosawa's original, but it all fits together. What can a person who understands the meaning of life? He's capable of anything! In this accent, the second half of the film is built, which supersedes the entire systematic tone of the exposition.
Revelations with a man who in one evening became closer than his own son, a beautiful episode in a restaurant is one of the advantages of this picture. There seems to be some kind of monotony, but Bill Nighy gives a beautiful performance: Mr. Williams' words are being scrutinized. The sudden ending of the story (although it’s still a good 30 minutes until the end of the timing) is surprising, even though you conclude that it should be. Here we were shown the stunning news, here the hero learned to feel life, here he enjoys every moment to come to the obvious result.
But between the climax and the last act, there was a very important flashback. The director left one episode unsolved. We've been shown what a person with a bureaucratic system can actually do. Would the hero have dared to do this without a good excuse? I doubt it. Mr. Williams would have remained part of a coherent mechanism, but it was the impetus that drove the hero to important decisions and productive measures.
When the system of administration is shown to be influenced, the work of all actions is surprising, amusing, and evaluating what can be achieved. Mr. Williams understood more than anyone what they were doing at work and how they were doing it to put in the effort. “The ordinary man opens an extraordinary key to life” – the slogan can be applied even to actions within the walls of the administration.
As a result, the film is gaining momentum for a long time, although the monotony was conceived as an immersion in the world of paperwork. But the fatal changes in the main character allowed you to see what in ordinary life you do not even think about. Although, again, the story is not new, predictable, it should be appreciated by Bill Nighy and the shooting of the 50s. Beautiful, dramatic, with an amazing, unfolding climax.
Based on Ishiguro's novel. A rather ordinary picture, moderately boring, telling about an official who at the end of his life was worthy of a beautiful deed and turned from a bore into an example for imitation. Even with all the desire, there is nothing more to say about the film.
London, 1953. A civil servant, Mr. Williams (Bill Nighy), after learning about the fatal diagnosis, tries to vividly and meaningfully live out his last days. The film is a remake of the film “Live” by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, inspired by the story by L. N. Tolstoy “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”.
Cozy, made in a warm range of archival footage of London 50s opening the film goes against the subsequent dark and cold shots of the film itself. This immediately confuses the viewer and causes dissonance in the perception of the film, because the viewer tuned in to one thing, but in fact received quite another.
No matter how the director tries to rethink the film of Akira Kurosawa, transferring the narrative to the UK and renaming the characters, you involuntarily begin to compare the two films, not in favor of the latter. Although the Japanese "Live" for more than 70 years, it inspires, encourages action, makes you think about life. After watching the creation of Oliver Hermanus remains indignation and fatigue from the story of a pensioner who could, but could not.
Actor Takashi Shimura, the performer of the role of Kanji Watanabe, at the time of the release of the film Kurosawa in 1952 was 47 years old, and Bill Nayi 73 years old. You don’t even need to come up with a fatal diagnosis for the hero, because he already breathes on incense. Mr. Williams barely walks, he has no vitality at all. The director tries to put importance on him, showing how he is respected and even feared by his colleagues, but why he seems so great and terrible to them is beyond the brackets, because he just sits at the head of the desk in the office and transfers papers from one place to another. Mr. Williams is a pale shadow of himself, unremarkable. This, probably, was the intention of the director, to show how the character stayed in the workplace and spat on himself and his life, but the actor too accustomed to the role. There is some nobility and even mystery in Bill Nighy’s game, but it is not interesting from the point of view of the protagonist who moves the narrative forward. The narrative tries to move him, but gets only a couple of stingy smiles and a bit of mouse fuss in the dying agony in the finale. In Takashi Shimura’s game, there was a spark, which he kindled to a full flame, and Bill Naya’s spark long ago died out. The viewer lived the suffering with Kanji Watanabe. Even when he was filmed from the back, the tragedy of the hero was felt, the inner fracture was visible and the desire to seize on the elusive life. The transformation of Mr. Williams to the finale, if there was, then her titanic efforts tried to express the other characters of the film with memories of the deceased.
"Live" is like a vacation video that a pensioner shows his grandchildren on the weekend. Nothing happens, we wander from corner to corner behind a bored grandfather, who is not surprised, and young actors jump around him like circus monkeys and squeeze out bitter tears.
It is worth remembering how magnificent the final scene in the film Kurosawa on the swing! Hermanus didn't know how to approach her. Insecure camera shoots the actor from different angles, but none of them touches the viewer for a living. Hermanus tries in vain to imitate Kurosawa, almost exactly repeating some of the footage from the original film, but, unfortunately, his efforts fade against the background of the Japanese master and are a pathetic parody that should not have been implemented.
To Live is the great story of Tolstoy, who lived another life, but now in Surrey.
Young Oliver Hermanus from South Africa encroached on two shrines of the film academic world. The story of Tolstoy about the “Death of Ivan Ilyich” and the already filmed film by Akira Kurosawa. In his allies, he was still without an Oscar Bill Nayi and one of the most famous living writers Kazuo Ishiguro (Nobelevka 5 years ago). Attempted, but not to engage in dialogue and certainly not to do what is right. Hermanus took the action to another space and told the story in his film language. No homages or covers.
Bill Nighy plays an aging London bureaucrat. He commutes to work from a typical British suburbia, sorts through papers and gives out boring instructions with an important look. In this dreary rhythm in which he seems to have spent his entire life, Mr. Williams learns that he is terminally ill.
He has six months left and is not ready to die. There are times when someone is ready for it. And here begins Tolstoy’s transformation, leading not so much to spiritual enlightenment as to a vivid feeling of this very life. Tolstoy’s hedonism always comes from asceticism – this is the mystery of Russian literature. Consolidate the opposite.
England is no better for decoration than Japan. Island civilizations actually look alike. And a closed world of some with the "brilliant isolation" of others. And, of course, the power of tradition and ritual. Globally, try to find 10 differences in the fact that one drinks tea at 5 p.m. and the other girds the obi for the kimono. Mechanics alone. And Hermanus clearly understands this.
Mr. Williams goes through all stages of adoption - tries to drink, thinks about a bullet in the forehead, goes into hedonism. Ishiguro gracefully translates the Tolstoy norm - output in work that benefits, and therefore transforms into memory. So Mr. Williams returns to the office to do at least one important thing in life - to build a playground.
The Japanese and Russians are no worse than the British are able to drown depression in a working rhythm, so their historical memory is arranged. And this absolutely Milovo Great British ploughman lives for the first time (the word LIVING here is much more appropriate in shades). The culmination is not death, but the moment of ultimate happiness after the work done. Righteous and useful. And that's the only way Mr. Williams finally accepts death, thereby defeating it.
In this sense, an endlessly sad film on paper is unlikely to bring anyone to tears, it works with other emotions, leaving the viewer to sit in an overcast melancholy. Is it the merit of Hermanus, who skillfully built penumbra and caught the glare of the outgoing sun? Or is it all Bill Nighy, whose death we believed from the first shot? Or maybe Ishiguro, in a traditional Japanese manner, able to convey the emotions of inner tear without external emanations.
In any case, "Live" fulfills its goals, as do all its authors. The film does not scar, cancel or debate the legacy of the greats. And it is here that art acquires continuity, fits into the general cultural context. Makes us better.