I Live in Fear

Plot

Kiichi Nakajima (Toshiro Mifune), an elderly foundry owner convinced that Japan will be affected by an imminent nuclear war, resolves to move his family to safety in Brazil. Nakajima's fervent wish is for his family to join him in escaping from Japan to the relative safety of South America. His family decides to have him ruled incompetent, and he is brought before a three-man tribunal, including Dr. Harada (Takashi Shimura), a Domestic Court counselor, for arbitration. Harada, a civil volunteer in the case, sympathizes with Nakajima's conviction. He points out that the fear of atomic and nuclear weapons is present in every citizen of Japan, and wonders aloud whether it is wrong to rule someone incompetent simply for being more worried than the average citizen. Eventually, the old man's irrational behavior prevents the court from taking his fears seriously, and he is found incompetent. Nakajima grows more and more obsessed with the idea of escaping Japan, eventually resulting in a tragic decision, once he is convinced it is the only way to save his loved ones. The film ends with the doctor pondering whether it may be more insane to ignore the nuclear threat than to take it too seriously.

Production

This was the last film that composer Fumio Hayasaka worked on before dying of tuberculosis in 1955. He had been Kurosawa's close friend since 1948 and had collaborated with him on several films. Hayasaka had, during the last decade of his life, a celebrated association with Kurosawa. The 1948 film Drunken Angel (Yoidore tenshi) was their first film together and later they worked on Rashomon. The director and composer collaborated to test “oppositional handling of music and performance” and, in his autobiography, Kurosawa would say that working with Hayasaka changed his views on how film music should be used; from then on, he viewed music as “counterpoint” to the image and not just an “accompaniment”.