February 8, 2024
FILM: PERFECT DAYS
DIRECTED BY: WIM WENDERS
STARRING: KOJI YAKUSHO, YUMI ASO, TOKO EMOTO
RATING: 4 out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
Everyone has an idea for what makes a perfect day. How often do we experience one though? The character Hirayama, played by Koji Yakusho, spends his days cleaning toilets. Considering that alone might make one feel depressed and cynical about the world. Yet, Hirayama walks out of his very modest home every day with a smile on his face. He’s learned what makes his life meaningful, even if it involves something as mundane as cleaning toilets. This is a very inspiring story about how the small things in life and one’s perspective on them can make it all the more worth living.
Perfect Days is directed by German-born director Wim Wenders who has been making films for decades (Wings of Desire, Paris Texas, Buena Vista Social Club.) This time out he chooses to follow the minute details of Hirayama’s daily life. We see his routine: watering his plants, buying a cold coffee from a vending machine, putting on a cassette of 20th Century rock music, and then heading off to work. He seems very at ease with his life. He meticulously cleans what are already some VERY clean public bathrooms. In fact, part of the joy of this film is seeing how different these facilities are to our own in America. The designs of each are unique and very modern. They are actually welcoming.
At lunch time, Hirayama sits in the same park eating the same basic sandwich day after day. His primary enjoyment here is looking up at a particular tree that blows in the wind under a blue sky. He takes photos of the tree with his decades old camera that has FILM in it. Then he heads back to work, finishes his day, gets cleaned up at a public bathhouse, has dinner in a subway fast food shop, and then heads home to read one of his many books. That’s pretty much it for him. Yet, it is this consistency that gives his life meaning and happiness. He knows exactly what he needs to do to have consistently perfect days.
Hirayama isn’t interested in major daily changes. He likes his old music (Patti Smith, Otis Redding, Van Morrison, and Lou Reed, whose song Perfect Day is featured both thematically and aurally here), his plants, whole milk, the same restaurants, and an old-fashioned camera with film he has to take to be developed every week on his day off. He’s not interested in new digital technology or Spotify. He knows what makes him feel comfortable and grounded.
There are a few characters that enter his world and shake it up a bit, including his young co-worker Takashi, who is only interested in impressing the girl he is dating, and a niece who appears suddenly on his front steps. You could say that these characters interrupt the flow of his days, and they do, but Hirayama manages to make the best of it. This is a film that recognizes there are breaks in the routines of life. Hirayama focuses on what is present on each day. At one point, the woman who runs a restaurant he’s been visiting for years says, “why can’t things just stay the same?” as if change might be a bad thing. It’s a wish a lot of us might have. Even a character that has been diagnosed with cancer though manages to find moments of joy and laughter in their presently changing circumstances.
One might think that this would make for a boring film experience. On the contrary, I found it highly stimulating. A lot of this has to do with the performance by Koji Yakusho, who won the Best Actor award at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. The subtle changes in his facial expressions reveal his moments of happiness, stability, and sometimes a shift in perspective. He gives his all to this role both physically and emotionally but is never in any way over the top. There are warranted emotional moments that the actor handles beautifully but mostly he exudes the character’s deep and appreciative sense of solitude. While we might be waiting for something big to happen to him, that’s not Wenders’s point. He wants to illustrate this man’s life which is very quiet, like a pleasant Japanese Garden.
Yes, there are hints that maybe in some ways his growth in life has been stunted by a scarcity of real human connection, that his relationship with his family has not been easy, and that he might be worrying he could become homeless like the guy he sees regularly in the park, but Hirayama remains grounded in the present. Sure, there might be some conflicting inner feelings, which are beautifully expressed on Yakusho’s face in the film’s final scene but he’s reached a point of contentment. I found myself mesmerized by the satisfying, if very humble, life he leads. He’s got just the right number of familiar people as part of his days and enough sense of what makes him happy to be inspiring to watch.
Perfect Days is nominated for the Best International Feature Oscar this year. It opens this week in limited release, including the Music Box Theatre in Chicago. It was also one of my Top Ten Films of 2023.
FILM: PERFECT DAYS
DIRECTED BY: WIM WENDERS
STARRING: KOJI YAKUSHO, YUMI ASO, TOKO EMOTO
RATING: 4 out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
Everyone has an idea for what makes a perfect day. How often do we experience one though? The character Hirayama, played by Koji Yakusho, spends his days cleaning toilets. Considering that alone might make one feel depressed and cynical about the world. Yet, Hirayama walks out of his very modest home every day with a smile on his face. He’s learned what makes his life meaningful, even if it involves something as mundane as cleaning toilets. This is a very inspiring story about how the small things in life and one’s perspective on them can make it all the more worth living.
Perfect Days is directed by German-born director Wim Wenders who has been making films for decades (Wings of Desire, Paris Texas, Buena Vista Social Club.) This time out he chooses to follow the minute details of Hirayama’s daily life. We see his routine: watering his plants, buying a cold coffee from a vending machine, putting on a cassette of 20th Century rock music, and then heading off to work. He seems very at ease with his life. He meticulously cleans what are already some VERY clean public bathrooms. In fact, part of the joy of this film is seeing how different these facilities are to our own in America. The designs of each are unique and very modern. They are actually welcoming.
At lunch time, Hirayama sits in the same park eating the same basic sandwich day after day. His primary enjoyment here is looking up at a particular tree that blows in the wind under a blue sky. He takes photos of the tree with his decades old camera that has FILM in it. Then he heads back to work, finishes his day, gets cleaned up at a public bathhouse, has dinner in a subway fast food shop, and then heads home to read one of his many books. That’s pretty much it for him. Yet, it is this consistency that gives his life meaning and happiness. He knows exactly what he needs to do to have consistently perfect days.
Hirayama isn’t interested in major daily changes. He likes his old music (Patti Smith, Otis Redding, Van Morrison, and Lou Reed, whose song Perfect Day is featured both thematically and aurally here), his plants, whole milk, the same restaurants, and an old-fashioned camera with film he has to take to be developed every week on his day off. He’s not interested in new digital technology or Spotify. He knows what makes him feel comfortable and grounded.
There are a few characters that enter his world and shake it up a bit, including his young co-worker Takashi, who is only interested in impressing the girl he is dating, and a niece who appears suddenly on his front steps. You could say that these characters interrupt the flow of his days, and they do, but Hirayama manages to make the best of it. This is a film that recognizes there are breaks in the routines of life. Hirayama focuses on what is present on each day. At one point, the woman who runs a restaurant he’s been visiting for years says, “why can’t things just stay the same?” as if change might be a bad thing. It’s a wish a lot of us might have. Even a character that has been diagnosed with cancer though manages to find moments of joy and laughter in their presently changing circumstances.
One might think that this would make for a boring film experience. On the contrary, I found it highly stimulating. A lot of this has to do with the performance by Koji Yakusho, who won the Best Actor award at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. The subtle changes in his facial expressions reveal his moments of happiness, stability, and sometimes a shift in perspective. He gives his all to this role both physically and emotionally but is never in any way over the top. There are warranted emotional moments that the actor handles beautifully but mostly he exudes the character’s deep and appreciative sense of solitude. While we might be waiting for something big to happen to him, that’s not Wenders’s point. He wants to illustrate this man’s life which is very quiet, like a pleasant Japanese Garden.
Yes, there are hints that maybe in some ways his growth in life has been stunted by a scarcity of real human connection, that his relationship with his family has not been easy, and that he might be worrying he could become homeless like the guy he sees regularly in the park, but Hirayama remains grounded in the present. Sure, there might be some conflicting inner feelings, which are beautifully expressed on Yakusho’s face in the film’s final scene but he’s reached a point of contentment. I found myself mesmerized by the satisfying, if very humble, life he leads. He’s got just the right number of familiar people as part of his days and enough sense of what makes him happy to be inspiring to watch.
Perfect Days is nominated for the Best International Feature Oscar this year. It opens this week in limited release, including the Music Box Theatre in Chicago. It was also one of my Top Ten Films of 2023.