How long is 10 minutes?

It certainly is not a space of time that passes in the blink of an eye, but it is by no means an extended period, either. You would need this much time to drink a cup of coffee in a hurry. You can cook instant food in 10 minutes, but it is not long enough for a more complicated dish. An urban train passes through two or three stations in as much time.

The omnibus movie ``Ten Minutes Older'' brings together the works of 15 renowned directors who were each given 10 minutes' shooting time. Because most directors actually took longer than 10 minutes, the film was split into two parts-``The Trumpet'' and ``The Cello.''

The film's overall theme is ``time.'' There is a scene in which the words of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius are run as a symbol of the theme: ``In a manner of speaking, time is a river in which all things that come into being flow-a torrent to be precise.'' (The quote is taken from Aurelius' ``Meditations of Writings to Himself,'' a book contained in the Iwanami paperback library.)

The images and tales that make up the omnibus movie represent the 15 directors' replies to the question: ``How long is 10 minutes?'' Among them are Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, Aki Kaurasmaki, Spike Lee, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Jean-Luc Godard.

With their likes and dislikes, people will make all sorts of comment on the movie. Personally, what I found interesting was the variety of styles followed by the directors and their divergent outlooks on life. The film's significance also stems from the fact it is an omnibus of what was shot and recorded by world-famous directors at the same time. I would like to stress this point because life is, so to speak, an omnibus of an infinite variety of parallel developments that happen simultaneously.

In the movie's ``official reader,'' Wenders laments that the more time-saving devices we have, the less time we have to spend freely. ``My mornings,'' he writes, ``are occupied by a large number of received e-mails. This morning, it took me two to three hours to deal with 60 e-mails.''

For many salary earners, the time to enjoy the leisurely hours of the New Year holidays was over Monday morning, replaced by a return to the normal pace of working life. What this means is that 10 minutes becomes a crucial space of time again.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 5(IHT/Asahi: January 12,2004) (01/12)