“It’s a beautiful, slow moving film which leaves you with questions“
Con Nats
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Wim Wenders delves into the life of a toilet cleaner in Japan, which ends up as a meditation on life, in his Academy Award nominated film, Perfect Days.
Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) is humble man leading a quiet life in Japan. His tiny flat doesn’t have a bathroom or kitchen. He drives a minivan full of contraptions and still plays cassettes. He has excellent taste in 60s music. For lunch, he goes to the same park and photographs the same tree every day in black and white. He visits a bathhouse and noodle house at night, as they do in Japan. He reads Faulkner before sleep and cleans toilets by day. And that is a summary of the first hour of this slow moving film.
Hirayama’s life turns after a visit from Niko (Arisa Nakano), his niece, who has run away from home. His offsider quits and he stumbles across Mamma (Saruyi Ishikawa), who runs a restaurant he visits weekly, hugging another man. It’s in these moments, when others enter his solitary existence, that we see the joys and disappointments he finds in his day.
Wenders explained in an interview that he see two types of solitude: those from desperation and those which are a fulfilled solitude, which is what he examines in this story, co-written with Japanese poet and novelist, Takuma Takasaki . It’s an interesting question in this day of over-communication and can also be seen through the comeback of the philosophy of stoicism.
This story is an almost perfect analogy of its philosophy: Finding the simple joys in a normal day is important. It’s about living with calm acceptance in the present. Hirayama is so calm, when he finally shows a flash of frustration, you want to cheer him into anger.
Wenders uses a lot of his trademark black and white, layered and blurred imagery as a dream scape to the day. There isn’t a clear narrative to this story. It’s like Wenders uses brushstrokes of images and vignettes to paint Hirayama’s story. And he knows how to use silence and understatement to say as much as pages of script can convey.
The scene with his sister (Yumi Aso) who turns up in a chauffeur driven limousine to collect Niko is a gut wrencher. A whole back story is explained in a few lines. (Take note Australian writers, editors and critics: This is an example of excellent writing. No need to over-write and explain everything in detail. The actors explain it with their acting.) This life is a choice for Hirayama, who has turned away from a life of luxury and stress. No need for pity.
The pace does come at the cost of emotion as the first act takes too long. While Yakusho takes us into his emotional world, there is a detachment that makes it hard to fully connect with this character, but you do empathise with this warmly smiling humble man. The acting is superb and his Best Actor Award at Cannes was well deserved. The second half is worth the wait.
It’s a beautiful, slow moving film which leaves you with questions: In a world that pushes community and connections, can you find happiness in solitude? Is happiness reflected in material possessions and connections. They are questions, which Wenders doesn’t clearly answer, which will keep reverberating for days after the film ends.
Con Nats, On The Screen
