These Films Sleep Well: I Live In Fear (1955, Akira Kurosawa)

From 1959's Alain Resnais film, Hiroshima, Mon Amour, through to the 1988 Japanese full-length animation by Isao Takahata, Grave of the Fireflies, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been depicted on celluloid many times and in many different lights but never with so much restless energy, nor the aftermath dealt with so succinctly as in I Live In Fear. 

One of his many ignored masterpieces, Akira Kurosawa's I Live In Fear opens on a typical Japanese city seeking to assimilate its citizens' individuality, creating a visual mass of limbs and torsos. We swiftly move from the inseparable crowd to the Harada Dental Clinic, where Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura is checking up on one of his patients, a small child. We are quickly informed that Shimura is somewhat of a Renaissance man, acting as a family court mediator as well as carrying out his duties as a dentist. He leaves one place of employment for another, where we are introduced to the Nakajima family, led by the elderly Kiichi Nakajima (Toshiro Mifune).

Throughout the opening court session we sense an undercurrent of anxiety, a nervous tension which renders the entire family restless. As more and more is revealed about the family's situation, and more importantly, the head of the household's insistence that he not be pronounced mentally incompetent, we realize that despite their seemingly innocuous behavior, the Nakajima family may be at fault for the deteriorating relationships between them.

During the deliberation, a remarkable sequence is slowly introduced. The Nakajimas are sent from the courtroom and the mediators as well as the member of the bar association discuss the circumstances of the case. As they do this, the writing on the petition is superimposed over shots of the Nakajimas waiting outside. In this fashion we are shown, rather than told, that they are a family imprisoned by the seemingly mad actions of the father and the tempestuous reactions of the children.

Toshiro Mifune's performance as Kiichi stands among his best, as a nervous minotaur of a man, his incessant and irrepressible fidgeting subtly betraying his emotions before his explosive temper erupts. As a counterpoint to Mifune, Takashi Shimura's Dr. Harada is the epitome of evenhanded wisdom, juxtaposed against Mifune's elderly paranoia. Adding so many years to Mifune's character affords him a formidability against Shimura's Harada that he had not possessed in earlier matches with him such as Scandal and Seven Samurai.

While the film is strongest when either Mifune or Shimura is present, Kurosawa possesses the exceptional instincts (later present in the films of Michael Mann, particularly Heat) that allow him to drift from one minor character to another, giving each extra dimensions beyond what was expected of them at the time. As for the technical aspects of the film, they are all up to Kurosawa's extremely high standards. The brilliant photography is simple yet revealing, and despite the complexity of the issues involved, the film is lit in stark contrast, a minimum of dull grays surrounded by a piercing black and white. 

Article Author: Joshua Wiebe

Joshua Wiebe is a low level ex-government hack, carrying on about movies and music like it's something to do. It is, you know, something to do.

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