Writer: Kazuo Ishiguro
Director: Oliver Hermanus
“There’s no point in living if you can’t feel alive,” Elektra King declared in The World is Not Enough and that sentiment runs through Kazuo Ishiguro’s adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru, a Japanese film from 1952 transposed by Ishiguro to 1950s London as a staid officer worker discovers a new meaning to life. Filmed in considerable style by Director Oliver Hermanus which pays tribute to the movies of the era as well as creating a distinct atmosphere of its own, the plot of Living doesn’t quite live up to its style.
Set in a civil service office based in County Hall in London, the men who work there get the same train together everyday and spend their lives shuffling paper but never putting anything into practice. The Public Works office is overseen by Mr Williams who receives news that he has less than 6-months to live and so he sets out to try in the time he has left. But will his life and death mean anything to those he leaves behind.
Although based on a original film that is close to two and half hours long, the basic story feels like an over-extended novella, even in Ishiguro and Hermanus’ much shortened 100-minute version. That lack of substance becomes problematic quite quickly with thin characterisation and several dead ends in a scenario where nothing really ties together. Plenty of conversations are had but few feel truly meaningful and only lead to more questions that Living never even begins to answer.
A subplot involving Williams’ adult son and his wife who appear to resent living with him never gets beyond a couple of scenes that tell us little about either of them, while a jaunt to a seaside town where Williams spends a drunken evening with a local man (played by Tom Burke) adds next to nothing to the story apart from a number of Vaseline-lensed shots of debauchery in the drinking dens of whatever place this is.
The office scenario too, though well created feels like a cosy version of Kafka, aiming for faceless bureaucracy where files are passed between local government departments with nothing being achieved, but the film never takes this concept to its end point either in a more abstract vision of mid-century administration or a fully articulated comment on the failures of government to achieve things of importance to residents.
What saves Living is Hermanus’ fascinating visual technique, a use of colour, light and tone to give the impression of 50s London, contrasting the drab officiality of County Hall with the brighter outside world. The screen and the story finally comes alive every time the wonderful Aimee Lou Wood appears, bringing energy and a compelling connection to Williams that makes their conversations and her presentation of the sympathetic Miss Harris so watchable. Patsy Ferran does the same with her one big moment as Williams’ daughter-in-law, delivering angst over a shepherd’s pie, and you only wish Living had focused more on theses relationships.
As the lead, Bill Nighy is suitably remote as the very British Mr Williams, discovering some meaning to his life at last but the film gets too lost in meaningless male conversations that bring little understanding to the audience. An interesting exercise in technique but Living could feel more alive.
Living is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2022.
