“Perfect Days” is more of an experience and a character study than your run-of-the-mill art house film.
In its unique way, this movie is a very Zen piece of art where point of view and observation, attention to minute details, and subtlety rule supreme. It is very much about an older loner who reads poetry, listens to cassette tapes, and makes a living cleaning public toilets in Tokyo. Every day for him is kind of Groundhog Day from start to finish. Sounds depressing? Think again; this is one of the most joyful films you will watch this summer.
Perfect Days Is a Short Story within a Giant Tale
Hirayama lives in a modest Tokyo neighborhood and rides his small van every day to meticulously clean several of the most stylish public toilets I have ever seen. His routine is repetitive, and the only changes are the music he listens to and the chapters of the books—mostly by American authors—he reads every night. But the ordinary and quotidian appear rather enjoyable and significant in very small ways to Hirayama. His almost monastic lifestyle is peppered by his nightly impressionistic dreams.
Hirayama’s general demeanor makes the title “Perfect Days” an apt one. It’s easy to see that he very much enjoys his tranquil and silent existence, which seems to be only disturbed by Takashi, his lively and talkative coworker, and his juvenile antics. These “perfect days” take a different direction when Niko, Hirayama’s niece, shows up unannounced at his place. They spend a few days together, which gives us a very narrow glimpse at Hiriyama’s possibly troubled past.
Perfect Days is a Back to the Future of Sorts
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In many ways, “Perfect Days” is a return to the basics, to the use of cinematic language at its purest. And in others, it is contemporary in the way it contrasts the modern world with the past. How these little fleeting moments are shown makes you feel a sort of automatic, new-found nostalgia for things that are probably not happening in your life right now. In other words, when was the last time you really paid attention to the way the foliage moved with the wind in your local park?
There aren’t many movies to reference here; “Patterson” by Jim Jarmusch comes to mind because the protagonist is also a blue-collar worker who finds contentment in simple things and great works of literature. Then maybe “Le Samourai” by Jean-Pierre Melville because of its cadence, but it thematically belongs in a completely different universe. At any rate, in “Perfect Days” Hirayama carries a “joie de vivre” that the characters of these films lack, which is possibly the most striking difference.
They Are World-Class Filmmakers for a Reason
“Perfect Days” is hands-down a great film—an instant classic, if you will. The director Wim Wenders, known for “Paris, Texas,” “Wings of Desire,” and “Faraway, So Close!” and the lead actor Koji Yakusho, known for “Shall We Dance?” “13 Assassins” and “The Third Murder” are both longtime Cannes Film Festival winners who have also received other accolades. These two aging men are still at the top of their game, and it shows.
Far Away So Close
“Perfect Days” is a film stripped of all unnecessary fluff. Its minimalistic splendor says it all, and then some. Dialogue is almost nonexistent, camera movements are restrained, sound is subtle, and so is the editing. Yet it speaks volumes about the human experience and how one can glean meaning and flavor where there seems to be none. This is a fabulous film that will make you take a deep breath and smile for no apparent reason because there might be no higher purpose than just to take it all as it comes every waking hour.
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