100 Movies Every Catholic Should See #69: Ikiru (1952)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Starring Takashi Shimura.

“We only realize how beautiful life is when we face death”

Watanabe is, externally, a success. He has stayed in his post at the County Affairs office for 30 years, never missing a single day. He has worked his way up to being the chief of the office. However, the man has never really lived. As the film opens, fading into an X-ray of a tumor which resides in the protagonist's stomach–one that he does not yet know he has–the narrator tells us, “Here's our protagonist. But what a bore it would be to describe his life now. Why? Because he's only killing time. He's never actually lived.”