I Live in Fear (1955)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Film Review

Sandwiched between Seven Samurai (1954) and Throne of Blood (1957), two of his undisputed masterpieces, Akira Kurosawa made this far more modest film which reflected his deep personal concerns about living in the atomic age.  Overlooked to the point that only dedicated Kurosawa fans know of the film's existence, I Live in Fear is a modest entry in the director's oeuvre but it is nonetheless an important work, revealing more about 'Kurosawa the man' than most of his grander, better-known offerings.  The film was made at the height of the Cold War, at a time when the destruction of two major Japanese cities (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) by American atom bombs at the end of WWII was still fresh in the memories of most Japanese people.  Only one year before Kurosawa began work on the film, the Americans had detonated an H-bomb on Bikini Atoll as a test exercise - the radiation had reached as far as Japan's fishing waters and affected several fishermen.  Surely, in such a world, a sane man had every right to be scared?  This is the question that Kurosawa compels us to ponder in I Live in Fear, one of his bleakest, most socially relevant films.

In the public perception of the 1950s, atomic radiation was certainly one of the great terrors of the age, as is evident from the countless number of films made in that decade in which it features prominently, most notably science-fiction films such as The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) and Them! (1954), and of course the original Godzilla films made in Japan.  Comparatively few film directors were minded to examine the psychological and human consequences of living in the atomic age, which makes Kurosawa's I Live in Fear all the more important as a social document of its era.  The film was not a great success - in fact it was one of the director's biggest commercial failures and he decided against giving it an international release.  It was not until 1967 that the film received a theatrical release in the United States.

I Live in Fear is not only a cogent expression of Cold War anxieties, succinctly expressed through an old man's efforts to avoid the bomb by moving his whole family to the other side of the planet; it is also one of Kurosawa's most scathing critiques of Japanese society, finding fault with that most sacred of institutions, the family.  The central character in the film, a 70-year-old foundry owner named Nakajima, is the archetypal Japanese patriarch, the head of the household who must be obeyed and respected at all times.  Nakajima thinks he is acting in the best interests of his family, but what his family see is a man who threatens to destroy their comfortable way of life with his paranoid delusions.  Kurosawa presents a moral dilemma - do the family stick to tradition and go along with Nakajima, knowing it will be the ruin of them; or do they turn against him and have him committed to a psychiatric institution?   By challenging one of the basic precepts of Japanese society, by implying that elders can be deluded and therefore dangerous, Kurosawa is venturing into very controversial territory, and this could be the main reason why the film failed to find an audience in Japan.

The social critique is very suggestive (a reflection perhaps of the director's antipathy towards his own father, who was by all accounts something of a tyrant) but it is apparent that Kurosawa's main intent is elsewhere - to expose public complacency over the atom bomb and to ask simply: should we be afraid?   Like the court counsellor Dr Harada, we are invited to judge whether an individual is mad to be afraid of the bomb or whether society in general is mad to totally disregard the threat it poses.  Like Harada, our initial impression is that Nakajima is an insane paranoiac.  He cowers in terror when he sees lightning in a thunderstorm and he is prepared to use up all of his resources in an attempt to flee to what he believes to be a safe haven.  By the end of the film, we are less certain and it begins to appear that Nakajima may be the only sane person in the world, the only person with the imagination to see what is coming and the courage to do something about it.  Kurosawa does not resolve the dilemma either way; he merely invites us to consider whether we are right to close our eyes to the danger that hangs over us all.  Perhaps if more people were afraid, and were able to articulate their fear, the world might one day be rid of nuclear weapons...

Doubtless, it is the controversial themes that Kurosawa broaches in I Live in Fear, with characteristic directness, which have consigned the film to virtual obscurity, although on both the technical and artistic front it has almost as much to commend it as most of the director's other work.  Kurosawa's decision to shoot several interior scenes with multiple cameras (and later select the best shots in the editing suite) instead of shooting a scene several times with different cameras was an innovation and is something that gives his film a fiercely intense immediacy and gripping near-documentary realism.  An even bolder decision was the casting of the 35-year-old Toshirô Mifune in the central role of the 70-year-old patriarch Nakajima, an inspired move as it turned out.  Mifune's portrayal of an old man is a little too mannered to be entirely convincing but the actor brings exactly the right combination of controlled hysteria and dignity to the part - he energises the film and provides it with its moral and emotional core, repelling his audience whilst somehow also retaining their sympathy.

Another of Kurosawa's favourite actors, Takashi Shimura, takes the film's other major role, that of the court counsellor Harada, the man with the unenviable task of deciding whether Nakajima is of sound mind.  Shimura's performance is, as ever, flawless and brims with humanity, the perfect conduit by which Kurosawa can direct his moral conundrum at his audience.  The final sequence in which Harada confronts a completely broken down Nakajima is one of the most devastating and chilling in Kurosawa's entire oeuvre, and the linchpin of the film.  As he is spellbound by the sight of a setting sun, Nakajima appears transfigured by his worst fear - his world being consumed in a ball of flame.  Beside him, Harada watches in stunned silence and seems to experience his own moment of epiphany, the realisation that Nakajima may be the sanest man in the world.

Tragically, this was to be composer Fumio Hayasaka's final collaboration with Kurosawa (he had previously scored many of the director's films, notably Rashomon, Ikiru and Seven Samurai).  His death at 41 from tuberculosis came as a great personal and professional blow to Kurosawa.   Hayasaka's experimental score for I Live in Fear (which was completed by Masaru Sato) contributes much to the film's dark mood of paranoia and oppression; it also provides a potent evocation of the subconscious terrors that prey on us all as we go on living, seemingly in ignorance of the radioactive stormcloud that is coming our way.

Film Synopsis

Japan, in the mid-1950s.  Convinced that his country faces imminent destruction by atomic bombs, elderly patriarch Kiichi Nakajima plans to sell his foundry and move with his entire family to Brazil.  Unfortunately, his family have no desire to move and, fearing that the old man may be unhinged, they take him to a family court, which will decide whether he is mentally competent.  Court counsellor Dr Harada tries to resolve the dispute and initially comes to the view that Nakajima is indeed deranged.  Surely only a madman would choose to inflict such cruelty on his family?   Later, Harada has second thoughts and he begins to wonder if the old man is saner than any of them...