Ikiru
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Starring Takashi Shimura, Miki Odagiri
Living
Directed by Oliver Hermanus
Starring Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood
(Spoilers ahead)
Living (2022) is an English remake of Akira Kurosawa’s classic, Ikiru (1952). While the original takes place in Tokyo and its counterpart in London, both movies follow the same story with no significant divergence in plot. The story is set in the post-WWII era and centres around a longtime public bureaucrat—Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) in Ikiru, Rodney Williams (Bill Nighy) in Living—who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Given only months to live, but unable to inform his estranged son of the diagnosis, Watanabe/Williams sets out to quietly commit suicide. He cannot bring himself to do this, though, and it is here where the central question of the movie comes into focus: What does it mean to live? The question, of course, is not just a matter of survival, but pertains to how we as humans ought to live. It pertains to the good life, a truly satisfying life. The question is especially urgent given the fatal diagnosis.
Having skipped going to the office, Watanabe/Williams meets a writer (Yunosuke Ito/Tom Burke) to whom he reveals his plight. Pitying him, the writer introduces him to his vision of the good life, which consists in taking him to the city to experience the pleasures of the night life. However, after a night of dancing, drinking, and dames (including a strip dance), we see that Watanabe/Williams is in no better condition than before he set off on his night of fun. From sensuality, he turns back to despondency. The good life is not to be found in worldly pleasures. Both he and the writer realize that, while obviously not a cure for his cancer, neither were such pleasures a cure for his hopelessness.
On another day, he runs into a former colleague, Toyo Odagiri (Miki Odagiri)/Margaret Harris (Aimee Lou Wood). It is from this encounter that the two begin to spend time with each other around town. In their final meeting, Watanabe/Williams admits to the girl that he has terminal cancer, and he reveals the reason for his interest in spending time with her: he, too, wanted the kind of happiness in life that she seemed to have. It is shortly thereafter that Watanabe/Williams realizes how he should spend the remaining months of his life, something which will eventually bring him joy and satisfaction.
After a long absence, Watanabe/Williams returns to the office determined to have a playground constructed. Requests for construction had previously been ignored by the city’s bureaucrats, including Watanabe/Williams himself. But by this time, Watanabe/Williams is a changed man, and he spends the rest of his life—the few months that are left—having the playground built. From being a lifeless bureaucrat for decades, Watanabe/Williams finally knows how to live.
After his death, we see that his former colleagues pledge to live as he did, and this is the movie’s invitation for the audience to do the same. While not all of us will have a fatal diagnosis, and while many of us still have years remaining, like Watanabe/Williams, we all will pass on from this life eventually, and so we ought to live accordingly. However, the film’s invitation is also its challenge. Despite witnessing Watanabe/Williams, his former colleagues are not true to their pledge. With the exception of one colleague (who tries to keep it, but fails), things go back to how they were—dull, ineffective, lifeless. Despite presenting Watanabe’s/Williams’ inspiring example, the film has a bleaker outlook on most people. Even if we ourselves encounter people who live well, and even if we profess to do likewise, will we really do so?
Besides challenging its audience to live a good life, the story presents a particular vision of the good life which is worth examining. The good life, according to the films, is not a self-centred one. It is opposed to the radical self-centredness of Western culture. It is not to be found in self-gratification, as Watanabe/Williams himself realizes after a night out in the city. Rather, it is to be found in the service of others, especially for those who do not have the power to improve their circumstances. The playground that Watanabe/Williams had built had been requested by a group of women who wanted something to be done about a dilapidated part of town, which had posed a danger to their children. They wanted the playground built there, but on their own they could not do it given the practices of the bureaucracy. They needed someone like Watanabe/Williams to intervene, and it was by serving these women and their children that Watanabe/Williams found fulfillment.
It is worth nothing, too, that the film shows that one can do good right where one is. At the beginning of the movie, we see that Watanabe’s/Williams’ life in the office is not worthwhile. It is dull and numb. However, after spending much time away, neglecting his official duties in search of how he should spend the remainder of his life, the answer leads him back into the office, back into the place where he was so lifeless. His situation provokes the thought that perhaps what we ought to do is where we already are. Perhaps there is some good that we can do where we are now, and we need not flee elsewhere to do it.
The story also reminds us that doing what is good will take courage. Sometimes it means breaking certain social conventions and standing up to others, as Watanabe/Williams did in getting construction for the playground underway, even stepping over his proper jurisdiction. Ikiru shows this particularly well, given its Japanese context with its emphasis on conformity. Watanabe himself not only stands up to his fellow bureaucrats (as Williams does), but he even remains determined in the face of mobsters.
Finally, it is worth noting the religious significance of the story. In Living, before discovering how he can use his remaining months of life, Williams tells Ms. Harris, “When the time comes, when my Maker calls me, I wish at least for him to find me . . . living.” Here we see an element of being accountable to God for one’s life, and so one ought to live accordingly. In Ikiru, we see the religious significance of suffering. In the middle of their night out, while sitting at a bar, the writer, describing Watanabe, tells the barkeep:
Ecce homo. “Behold the man.” This man bears a cross called cancer. He’s Christ. If you were diagnosed with cancer, you’d start dying right away. But not this fellow. That’s when he started living.
Here the film draws the analogy between Watanabe and Christ himself. It is a reminder that even in his passion, Christ was able to accomplish good. Indeed, in suffering even unto death on a cross, he accomplished a great good—forgiveness for wayward sinners. Although Watanabe has ways to go at this point of the film (this is, after all, during his night of revelry), he eventually comes to reflect Christ in his actions. While dying from cancer—indeed, spurned on by his cancer—he is nonetheless able to accomplish some good on behalf of others. Here we see the redemptive nature of suffering from the Christian standpoint, where one’s suffering can come to reflect Christ’s suffering and be used for much good.
Both Ikiru and Living are beautiful films, and I recommend either one. While they share the same basic plot, they differ in certain aspects. Living, for instance, does a better job than Ikiru in portraying the night life segment. While both have the same outcome, Living better portrays just how unsatisfying a life of self-gratification and sensuality can be, as we witness Williams’ exhaustion as the night wears on. By contrast, I think Ikiru does a better job with its portrayal of the women who wanted the playground built. Whereas Living hired ladies who obviously looked like actresses, Ikiru used ordinary looking women, which gave it more realism. This was especially effective during the funeral scene when the women mourn the loss of the protagonist—I found myself moved in Ikiru, but not so much in Living. Ikiru is also sharper in its criticism of bureaucracy and the degradation of family life, but given that, perhaps one might find Living to be the more focused movie. Regardless of the differences, you cannot go wrong with either film.