I finally watched a movie that my eldest recommended a couple of months ago, but back then I thought it was too artsy to spend almost 2 hours on, given my short attention span.
However, I had been seeing a lot of positive reviews of the movie ‘Perfect Days’ on social media lately, so I decided to give it a go one lazy Saturday night.
Perfect Days was a nominee for Best International Feature at the 2024 Academy Awards, and it is set in Japan, where my eldest is currently studying. At first I thought the recommendation was because it was set in Japan, but it turned out to be a pretty good film, particularly for someone at my stage of life.
According to Google Gemini: “Perfect Days (2023), directed by Wim Wenders, is a meditative drama following Hirayama (Koji Yakusho), a quiet, content man who cleans public toilets in Tokyo. He lives a structured, repetitive life focused on analog pleasures—cassette tapes, books, and photographing trees—finding beauty in the mundane and “Komorebi” (sunlight filtering through leaves).”
Spoiler alert: my wife slept through most of the movie. But she sleeps through most films so that doesn’t really count for much.
The film is not a typical or traditional fare, where the plot involves a conflict that needs to be resolved or a world that needs heroes. It simply follows 2 weeks in the life of a man who is content with his life and routine, which involves cleaning public toilets in Tokyo every day. For those who were expecting action or conflict, ‘Perfect Days’ would be a snoozefest. But if you just sit back and watch it, it can be quite entertaining and thought provoking.
The thing about Hirayama, the main character, is that he has seemingly found contentment in his routine. To be fair, the public toilets he cleans are the prettiest I’ve seen, but it is still a public toilet and even though the ones he cycles through are aesthetically pleasing and cinematic, the actual job, which involves scrubbing toilets, urinals, floors, and mirrors, is far from glamorous. The film establishes that Hirayama does his work well, and he is generally content with his job and routine, even taking time to appreciate beauty whenever he encounters it, whether it is in reflections on stainless steel ceilings, or the sunlight filtering through leaves.
He doesn’t go about saving the world, getting the girl, or slaying his inner demons. He just goes about his day, and if he is not happy, he is actually quite content… more content than many of us who are in the rat race of life will ever be.
The beauty of the film, especially for ‘older’ folk like me, is that I think I relate to it more than a young, ambitious person ever could. I have for some time been finding peace in describing my current lifestyle as ‘monastic’, where I would like to think that I am content with my own routine and standing in life. I don’t care about appearances or what people think about me anymore, and I just want to do my thing, whatever it is, well. I wouldn’t clean public toilets of course, because that would be too much, especially in this country, but there are things that I enjoy doing that is not sexy, such as weeding my lawn, and I probably wouldn’t mind doing more of it if I didn’t have to worry about sending kids to school, or keeping up with the Joneses.
The film would probably be easier to get if the main character weren’t content/happy with cleaning public toilets, because that is something that is very difficult to relate to, but it might not be as interesting if he were a sushi chef, or a woodworker, a craftsman, or an artist. The point it was making was that if a man who cleans public toilets every day can find contentment, what are we missing in our own personal quests for the same?
Just like life, the film was a bit pointless. But for those who pay attention, there are lessons to be learned and realizations to be made. And maybe that was why it worked. I connected with its theme that life doesn’t have to be perfect to be perfect. All that matters is if it is perfect for the one living it, regardless of what others may think. After all, we all have different definitions of what a perfect day should be. As long as you find happiness, what others think shouldn’t matter anymore.*
