Movie 88: I Live In Fear

Kiichi Nakajima (Toshiro Mifune) is an elderly foundry owner who is terrified of being killed by an H Bomb, so he decides to move his family to Brazil where its safe. His family doesn’t want to go so they take him to a family court to declare him unfit. But if he really wrong to be worried?

Well yes and no. Part of this film working is putting yourself in to the time period. 1955, Japan. The only country to have had two H bombs dropped on it. EVERYONE must have been at least a bit scared, but as many characters say in the movie “there’s not much you can do about it so don’t let it bother you”. Kiichi’s only really crime is worrying too much.

I grew up in the 80’s when the ever present threat of nuclear annihilation was still about. Technically it still is, but we were more worried then because of the cold war. And every now and again it would cross my mind. If someone had nuked Glasgow and Dundee 10 years before though I think I’d have worried a lot more. Though someone COULD nuke Dundee and no one would notice. There’d be less mutants actually.

But I digress. A film like this could easily have an unsympathetic main character, though he’s observed more than front and center a lot of the time. He’s a bit nuts, he’s against his own family and he’s being obsessive about something he shouldn’t be. But if you go with the time period, or even if you don’t, you can see where he’s coming from.

This is a film from two Japanese masters, which doesn’t hurt. Akira Kurosawa is accepted as one of the best directors of all time, and he’s probably inspired your favourite director. This is only the second of his movies that I’ve seen, the other being Stray Dog. Stray Dog is about a policeman trying to find his lost gun. And it’s a damned good film. It has one thematic thing in common with I Live In Fear, that doesn’t sound like a whole lot of material. And it isn’t, but it works for Stray Dog. Unfortunately that’s not quite the case with I Live In Fear. The film occasionally drags on for longer than it really should. It’s far from bad though.

The performances help a lot, particularly from Mifune. If you look at him in this film you wonder how he survived until 1997. He looks and acts like a man in his late 50’s or 60’s. He’s 35. It’s a subtle performance, the character ranges from very staid to wildly erratic, and Mifune nails it to the wall. Without knowing who it was you could think it’s a great performance by a veteran actor, when it’s actually a fantastic performance by a relatively young actor. Let’s see R-Patz do that!


Whether you should hunt this out or not depends on a few things. 1) Do you like old movies? 2) Do you like Japanese movies? 3) Do you like the old Twilight Zone series? It feels a lot like one of those by the time things are said and done, so I’d let 3 be the biggest factor.

Btw, my enjoyment might have been hampered somewhat by slightly wonky subtitles on the BFI release of this movie. I’m assuming it’s a universal thing but it might have been troubles with my computers DVD software. Either way, if you in the UK you might have some missing text and the like. Which is a shame.

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