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I just finished watching this one. I've never posted in this subforum and don't know the rules around spoilers, so I'm just write up front that I am going to be spoiling both Living and the movie it's based on, Ikiru. I've seen that Living has gotten quite a positive reception, Bill Nighy even being nominated for an Oscar. I like a lot of adaptions, a notable few better than their source, but this one just missed me. I'm not sure if my memory of Ikiru is entirely hosed up from the decade plus ago I watched it, but the messages seemed so different, lacking nuance and worse. From my memory of Ikiru, our boy Kanji seemed incredibly isolated. The entire way through, no one could understand him, inscrutable from beginning to end and disliked by everyone. He bumbled through death just as he bumbled through life, trying to wring some meaning from his final days on this planet. People just didn't understand what he was going through and couldn't. By the end, the only people who really understood or appreciated him were the people he helped, in a last ditch effort to feel alive. But the small change he enacted on the world, though understated, redeemed him as a formerly soulless bureaucrat. In Living, every single person, from his colleagues to some cop we only meet for 30 seconds is brimming with empathy, understanding for White Kanji, played by Nighy. Always on the verge of tears, so loaded with schmaltz. By the end he was perfectly understood by every person he helped, every person he came across even briefly, besides maybe his son, for some reason. It seems like an awful bastardization of its source entirely driven by optimism. But, so cynical the drive toward feeling unambiguously positive that I feel it ruins the message. It is difficult to be understood. Reject idleness, comfort: do good. Anyway, my memory could be entirely flawed. Given the widespread praise of Living, it might be. But I wanted to see if any others are seeing what I am seeing
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Mar 22, 2023 05:24
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Dorkopotamis posted:It seems like an awful bastardization of its source entirely driven by optimism. But, so cynical the drive toward feeling unambiguously positive that I feel it ruins the message. I haven't seen Living yet but it's common for a film to be modified like that when redone in another country/culture/time.
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Mar 22, 2023 22:48
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I think we're in relatively the same time, but of course in a different country/culture. The English are among the most alienating and emotionally dead people in existence and I think it would serve the movie if that came across more.
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Mar 22, 2023 23:28
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Yes, I see both films are set around the time period. I was talking in terms of the changing audience and fads/marketing. The year 1952 is ancient history that's been rewritten over too many times to count. If The Greatest Show on Earth was rereleased today it wouldn't reach #1 in the box office again. The phrase "that didn't age well" gets thrown around a lot and it's sometimes applied to films released only 5-10 years back.
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Mar 23, 2023 05:33
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