Kurosawa’s movie Ikiru (1952) has to be one of my all time favorite movies. Every time I watch it, I feel grabbed by the movie from the very opening scene, when we are introduced to the main character, Watanabe Kanji. We are shown him working at his desk at the local municipal government office, completely disinterested in the world around him. The narrator introduces him to the audience saying,
これが、この物語の主人公である。しかし、今この男について語るのが退屈なだけだ。なぜなら、彼は時間を潰しているだけだから。彼には生きた時間がない。つまり、彼は生きているとはいえないからである。“This is the protagonist of our story. However, to tell his story now would simply be tiresome. This is because [at this point] he is simply passing his time. He has no time to live. That is, you can’t even say that he is alive.”
