I Live in Fear — Dancing on a Volcano
I Live in Fear (Ikimono no kiroku — better translated Record of a Living Being) is a 1955 film by Japanese titan Kurosawa Akira detailing an ageing patriarch’s efforts to move his family to Brazil in order to escape the nuclear apocalypse he believes to be impending. While no film from Kurosawa can truly be called obscure, Seven Samurai and Rashomon’s imposing shadows have long kept many of his films, this one included, less discussed than they merit. In this writer’s humble view, I Live in Fear ranks among his best, a slow-moving character study which instils a subconscious dread into its audience that does not leave by the film’s masterful closing shots.
The film opens by introducing Dr. Harada, played by the peerless Kurosawa regular Shimura Takashi, a dentist who regularly serves in the domestic court and has recently received his latest summons. The case: Nakajima Kiichi, a foundry owner portrayed by Mifune Toshiro under several layers of makeup, is attempting to purchase a farm in Brazil and move his whole family there, where he believes they will be safe from the inevitable nuclear apocalypse. His relatives, from a plethora of different motives, are trying to have him declared mad to stop his plans. Plan and counter-plan are all Kurosawa needs to fill his ambling 103 minutes, which he mostly spends psychologically unpacking the Nakajima family and the audience’s conduit into their troubles, Dr. Harada.
As is typical of Kurosawa’s work, subtlety is not a high priority. His post-war nuclear paranoia, a theme he would re-visit 35 years later in Dreams (with perhaps even more bluntness), is on clear display after ten minutes and continues to be the focus of the film’s (many) conversations. However, Kurosawa’s trademark empathy is also on display as he skilfully crafts three-dimensional and believable characters whose views he nevertheless passes clear but measured judgement on. It is only with the utmost understanding that he achieves this impressive feat (here and elsewhere throughout his filmography), seeking to enlighten his audience while simultaneously demonstrating a thorough comprehension of his naysayers’ worldviews. While Nakajima Kiichi plays a holy fool of sorts, misunderstood by an apathetic and materialistic world, those around him are not malicious mockers but simply people with less time than him, too occupied by the inertia of their everyday lives to give his concerns serious thought.
The film’s greatest achievement is embodied in Dr. Harada, the everyman who accompanies the audience throughout. Initially preoccupied by his many professional and civic commitments, he has little time to ponder existential threats, like most of the film’s characters and much of its audience. Yet, as he sees through his doppelgänger's case, he and we discover the truly fragile nature of our existence, not by hearing the lecture of some all-knowing saint but through a slow questioning which leads to awakening. A slow-moving deconstruction in the manner of Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s Cure, the film’s true genius is its piecemeal storytelling. The intellectual conclusion is readily apparent from the premise, but it is only through a continuous probing that we as viewers discover the true emotional magnitude of that buried truth. And by never truly reaching an emotional catharsis, this slowly-built fear is carried by the audience out of the film; it did not leave me for at least the rest of my day. And to leave a viewer with a different perspective with which to see the world — what more could a filmmaker hope for?
Concluding with perhaps the two best final shots in all of cinema, I Live in Fear is a sadly underseen masterpiece by a landmark director. Eschewing the closed ending with as much skill as in Seven Samurai or Ran, Kurosawa beings the film with Dr. Harada’s phone call and ends it in the new eyes with which we look at our world. Filled with great performances and cinematography peppered with hard-hitting images, I Live in Fear is empathetic, compelling and — dare I say — truly terrifying.
