What a Perfect Day
SPOILERS FOLLOW FOR THE 2023 FILM PERFECT DAYS
Perfect Days is a 2023 Japanese drama film by legendary director Wim Wenders, best known for films such as Paris, Texas and the documentary Buena Vista Social Club. Starring Kōji Yakusho, it is a quaint little movie that follows a few weeks in the life of a janitor, Hirayama, as he goes through his usual schedule and finds the beauty in the little things throughout his day. Very little changes from day to day; the things that may threaten to derail any of our days are merely a bump in the road for Hirayama. He knows how to embrace the mundane, and make it something special for yourself. We should all be more like him.
It is understandable to see this film and interpret it as a bleak repetition, a slog of endless shifts and lack of forward motion that is coming for us all. But for me, this was an affirming film, one that made me feel a bit more at peace with my daily life. As the layers peel back from Hirayama’s life, you discover more depth than was indicated around the start. While he appears alone at the beginning, he has friends, and a family; his niece, Niko, discusses with him after running away about how she had always planned on moving in with him, and his sister makes an appearance shortly after. He has a father who lives within biking distance of his quaint house, who he visits despite an implied troubled past with him; he was seemingly able to work his way through these issues in his goal of sustained peace everyday. He has people who enjoy his presence and whose lives are made better by him, such as his co-worker Takashi, the restaurant owner Mama, and the man he meets at the end. None of them are left worse off for him being around, with the acts he commits actively improving their days.
This film places a special importance on having a schedule, a regular day that you follow consistently. When Takashi quits his job, multiple people have their schedules changed for the worse. Hirayama is forced to cover for his cleaning route, taking away time for other normal activities for him, and Takashi’s friend is left running off upset when he is unable to find him cleaning. Everybody hinges on some sort of repetition in their life, no matter how little or large it may be; we get the same coffee every morning, make our beds the same way each day, or maybe, like Hirayama, we rest our entire day on a sort of self-inscribed calendar, which we rarely stray away from barring outside forces.
The beauty in this film is how much it is able to say with so little. It is incredibly sparse, lacking any sort of conventional score, with the only music appearing being from Hirayama’s cassettes that he plays while driving around. There is not a lot of dialog, with much of the most potent moments being relatively unspoken; Takashi’s friend running off disappointed, Hirayama breaking down into tears (both when his sister leaves, and in the final scenes of the film as he is driving off), the glances shared with the stranger in the park every afternoon. Many of us experience moments of beauty that do not belong to words, that may only live on in our minds as scenes to replay for ourselves. This movie places emphasis on these times, those little moments in the perfect days that help us carry on.
There is so much beauty in this film, despite the setting remaining consistent. Most of this beauty hinges on the startling nuance of Kōji Yakusho, who does so much with so little. Just the flickers in his eyes can tell a story all on their own. But the truest beauty in this film is what it reminds us of: there is always so much around us to enjoy, and it is a disservice to the environment to ignore it so consistently. People are heavily focused on the negatives in life, with good reason at times, but it can overshadow any beauty that we may come across. That isn’t fair to ourselves, to not allow us to enjoy the smallest moments in our days. So go out, take some pictures of nature. Enjoy the sunlight as it hits your skin, or the rain soaking through your shoes. Find wonder and whimsy in something you thought never contained any before. If you do this, maybe you will find some perfect days in your life, too.