Mr. Zombie’s Zest for Living

"Men are such fools! They only realize how beautiful life is when they're face to face with death.... Some die without knowing what life is." (A quote from Ikiru)

Why did a South African film-maker adapt a Japanese film made seven decades ago for his first English-language film for which a Nobel Prize winner in Literature wrote the script keeping in mind the veteran British actor whose stellar performance received an Oscar nomination?

If you’re a film buff, you may have already watched Living (2022), an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru (1952). Kazuo Ishiguro wrote the script, and Bill Nighy played the lead role.

Why the adaptation? Because Ikiru (To Live), inspired by Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) is a timeless classic. Kurosawa had a five-decade long distinguished career in cinema-making and had adapted works of Shakespeare (Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear), Dostoevsky (The Idiot), and Tolstoy for his films.

Living tells the story of an old man’s confrontation with imminent death. Williams, a senior bureaucrat in the London County Council leads a monotonous life, buried under paperwork and adhering to rigid routines. When a child, his life-goal was to grow up to be a gentleman who donned a business suit and hat, took the morning train to his office in London, and returned home in the evening. He achieved his dream, but as the years rolled on, he turned to Mr. Zombie, the nickname coined by Miss Harris - a junior, youthful, and a little irreverent colleague. ‘Sort of dead but not dead,’ she explained. ‘Small wonder, I didn’t notice what I was becoming,’ says Williams.

The film narrates how he stepped out of his robotic role to affirm and celebrate life before death claimed him. His life takes a profound turn when he is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Confronted with his mortality, Williams endeavours to find meaning and purpose in his remaining days. He pushes a project to transform a World War II bombed-site into a children's playground, confronting and dismantling bureaucratic inertia along the way.

How does one confront and come to terms with imminent death? When served a death sentence, how does one live out the remaining days of his life? Ivan Ilyich’s searing self-introspection, akin to a spiritual journey into the core of his existence, helped him to reconcile with his mortality. In the Hollywood dark comedy The Bucket List (2007), two terminally ill men (Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman) escaped from a cancer ward and headed off on a global jaunt to tick off their bucket list before they die. In Living, the protagonist has no bucket list; only a wish to live at least for a day – ‘If only to be alive for one day,’ says Williams.

What’s special about ‘Living’? The dying man’s simple, yet profound and rebellious defiance of the stifling ordinariness, the unbearable dullness, the enervating drabness of life. The three ladies from a poor colony make multiple rounds of the County Council demanding establishment of a public park in a war-ravaged strip filled with debris, garbage, and overflowing sewerage.

Bureaucracy’s response is predictable – deflect, defer, reject. Saying ‘no’ comes naturally to the men at the top, and their minions in the nooks and corners of the building stuffed with racks and papers. Except when Williams breaks ranks, steps out of office disregarding the wet and cold weather and marches to the site with all four of his junior colleagues reluctantly in tow. He walks into the ankle-deep sewerage sinking his shiny black shoes in the cesspool.

During his search for meaning in life, Williams sings an old Scottish song The Rowan Tree, first at the Bar, and later, swinging alone in the park which he had helped create. The song is nostalgic - a touching remembrance of times gone by when life was filled with love, laughter, hope, and joy.

The final scene is poignant. Williams is swinging alone in the park at night. It’s snowing and freezing; very dangerous for an old, terminally ill man to be out in the open. But Williams doesn’t care. He’s happy, and at peace. Resolute and unafraid, he had snatched a day of living from the jaws of deathly monotony and ordinariness of life.

The film is about life and living, the question posed is existential and eternal. Are you, indeed, living; or going through the motions of life?

The unexamined life, as Socrates said, is not worth living.

You may enjoy watching the film, I guess. It’s on Netflix.

Though tempted, I refrain from comparing Living with Ikiru, Bill Nighy with Takashi Shimura (who played Kanji Watanabe), and the poignant thematic songs The Rowan Tree with Gondola no Uta. If you watch these films, you may yourselves evaluate and judge.

Takashi Shimura in Ikiru

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The Rowan Tree

"The Rowan Tree" is a traditional Scottish folk song penned by Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne (1766–1845). The song nostalgically reflects on childhood, family, and the cherished memories associated with the rowan tree, a symbol of home and innocence in Scottish culture.

Lyrics of "The Rowan Tree":

Oh! rowan tree, oh! rowan tree,
Thou'lt aye be dear to me,
Entwined thou art wi' mony ties,
O'hame and infancy.
Thy leaves were aye the first o' spring,
Thy flowers the simmer's pride;
There was nae sic a bonnie tree,
In a' the countryside,
Oh! rowan tree.

How fair wert thou in simmer time,
Wi' a' thy clusters white,
How rich and gay thy autumn dress,
Wi' berries red and bright.
On thy fair stem were mony names,
Which now nae mair I see,
But they're engraven on my heart,
Forgot they ne'er can be,
Oh! rowan tree.

We sat aneath thy spreading shade,
The bairnies round thee ran,
They pu'd thy bonnie berries red,
And necklaces they strang.
My mother, oh! I see her still,
She smil'd our sports to see,
Wi' little Jeanie on her lap,
Wi' Jamie at her knee,
Oh! rowan tree.

Oh! there arose my father's prayer,
In holy evening's calm,
How sweet was then my mother's voice,
In the martyr's psalm.
Now a' are gane! we meet nae mair,
Aneath the rowan tree;
But hallow'd thoughts around thee twine,
O' hame and infancy,
Oh! rowan tree.

Prasanna Dash