“Living” – ★★
It probably isn’t fair to backtrack on a remake of a classic.
Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru is about old age redemption for an old man who wakes up in the quietly falling snow. With its sublime sense of sadness and compassion and its masterful three-act perspective switching, I Live is a good case that should be performed and re-performed year after year to perpetually stir our spirits. After all, “to live” drew from the existentialism of Death’s Door in Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
Still, I can’t help but think, “Wow, humbug” welling up in me about “Living,” a remake of Oliver Hermanus’ cool and elegant “To Live.” Written by Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, the film is a handsome production, especially brilliantly played by Bill Nighy, who stars as a British civil servant named Mr. Williams.
But, well, if your heart belongs to the movies, being able to view the remakes with skepticism is an inalienable right. , may be too tight to loosen its prejudices and embrace this sober, distinctly British spin on an almost divine cinematic setting. But I found it too well-placed and too sharply composed to record more than faint reflections.
British civil servant Mr. Williams (Bill Nighy) needs some serious self-reflection to learn how to live in ‘life’.
– Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
The first thing you’ll notice when you look at “Living” is its heavy and stylish photos. Hermanus, the South African filmmaker of last year’s memorable apartheid-era drama Moffy, and his cinematographer Jamie D. Ramsay dressed in bowler hats and pinstripe suits on a train platform outside London in 1953. The movie begins with the chorus of The formative beauty of the image, as it is, enhances the sense that “living” is something that is far from everyday life rather than being taken seriously.
Of course, no one does more repression than Ishiguro, author of Remnants of the Day and Never Let Me Go. By moving “Live” to mid-century England, he took full aim of the traditional gentleman’s notion and classic British sensibility. Introduced to this world by a new recruit named Peter Wakeling (Alex Sharp). Williams quietly rules a quiet corner of a sprawling bureaucracy and paperwork “skyscraper.” On the train platform, some veteran colleagues hint at the seriousness Peter is stepping into. After getting a little too excited, he advises, “Like church, not too much fun or too much laughter.”
The same can be said for “alive”. It’s more like a museum piece than the title suggests. Inside the public works office, Mr. Williams sits hunched over papers being forwarded to other departments or added to the pile. “You can leave it here,” he says. “No harm.”
It is striking to hear Nye’s colorless voice and see his demeanor so rigid. It adds a sense of tension to We know that deep inside Mr. Williams, there is a more alive soul.
Margaret Harris (Amy Lou Wood) helps Mr. Williams find purpose in life.
– Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
When Mr. Williams was diagnosed with deadly cancer and told he had months to live, doctors told him calmly and frankly. “This is never easy,” he says. “Pretty much,” Mr. Williams replies.
He has a young, lively colleague Margaret Harris (Amy Lou Wood) later describe his impression of him as “dead but not dead”. Given an expiration date on life, Mr. Williams slowly begins to throw away his habits of politeness.
In a stolen moment with Margaret, he begins to grasp the last part of his life. But there’s an old emptiness in “Living” that even the most moving scenes don’t quite dissipate. His first and last attempt to sustain the crescendo re-influences and unsettles. Because it is said that after his death, through gossip of his colleagues, “alive” will leave you with a gloomy bewilderment.
• • •
Starring: Bill Nighy, Alex Sharp, Amy Lou Wood
Director: Oliver Hermanus
Other: Release of Sony Pictures Classics. Rated R for provocative content and smoking. 102 minutes
