Oliver Hermanus’ “Living”

Living (2022)

This beautiful, respectful retelling of Kurosawa’s magnificent Ikiru has a soul of its own

Going into an advance screening for this, I mentally had my arms folded and I was full of skepticism in regards to remaking one of the greatest films ever made but I was happy to discover this adaptation with a screenplay from Kazuo Ishiguro and directed by Oliver Hermanus has soul of its own. The cinematography from Jamie D. Ramsay is sumptuous, the acting from Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Alex Sharp and a perennial favourite of mine, Tom Burke, is astounding and the script from Ishiguro isn’t afraid to make significant changes from its source while maintaining an almost uncanny connection to Ikiru.

If you’ve seen the trailer and weren’t sold, don’t worry, neither was I. It portrays something altogether more pedestrian than what is actually delivered. This does share some commonalities with the film adaptation of Ishiguro’s book Remains of the Day, but surprisingly stands on its own not only from that but Kurosawa’s original version and it has a soul of its own.