Perfect Days

Grade: A

Roger Ebert once said that we live in a box of space and time, and movies are its windows. In Perfect Days, writer/director Wim Wenders uses American classic rock songs as the windows of his film. They serve as a kind of mini-intermission, or chapter break. There isn’t an enormous amount of dialogue here, and our lead actor talks the least. There’s bound to be people who will hate Perfect Days (calling it boring), and I wouldn’t blame them. It requires attention, and with characters going long periods without talking, it’s easy to check out or mentally go south. But this is a movie that rewards your concentration, and gives back at least as much as the viewer puts in.

Kôji Yakusho (Babel, Memoirs of a Geisha) stars as Hirayama. He’s single, possibly never been married, in the second half of his 50s, and works for a company called The Tokyo Toilet – cleaning bathrooms all over town. His living situation is so modest, that to take a shower, he goes to the local sentō (Japanese communal bathhouse) every day. He doesn’t have an alarm; the sound of the street-sweeper making her rounds is what wakes him up before sunrise. He gets a coffee from the same vending machine in his residence’s parking lot, and drives into town, beginning and ending his days with the likes of Lou Reed, Van Morrison, and The Animals playing on his van’s cassette player. He is quite gentle, patient, and soft-spoken when he does speak.

Wenders shows us his nightly dreams in black-and-white. They usually don’t make sense, but incorporate things he saw that day, or current issues he’s been thinking about. People like Hirayama’s sister seem to scoff or look down on his job as a janitor, like it’s somehow inferior, but we see first hand on a daily basis how methodical he is and how much pride he takes in his job. It’s not the most glamorous, but it’s an honest living, and he’s fiercely dedicated. You have to admire that.

The movie is several days in the life of this man. Aside from my beloved The Florida Project, Perfect Days made me think of Enys Men – a film from last year that also depicted lots of repetition and routine. However, I felt Enys Men, though intriguing, didn’t go enough places, and my B- grade was a padded, benefit-of-the-doubt one. I have no idea why Perfect Days worked so well for me, but I was affected and touched on an unexplainable, visceral, intrinsic level. Halfway through it, I thought “I’m loving this so far, and I’m glad there’s another hour to go.” Though he’s such a creature of habit, there are beautiful moments and subplots that weave in along the way, like the ongoing anonymous Tic-tac-toe game he has with a stranger, via a sheet of paper left in a public bathroom. The city looks great, the soundtrack rocks, the mechanics of the showers in the sentō are fascinating – and this may have to be when I stop summarizing and leave you to let everything unfold for yourself.

The ending might make you think of Call Me By Your Name. It lingers on Yakusho’s face for a while as he drives into town at the beginning of another work day. People don’t talk about it much, but have you ever cried in your car – or even while driving? Is Yakusho crying grateful tears here, or are they the sad kind? He does some smiling too, so I’ll say it’s a bit of everything. It hasn’t yet been an hour since I finished watching this movie, but at the moment, I keep thinking of Wim Wenders and a camera crew documenting every mundane, everyday move I make – from brushing my teeth to the exciting task of getting the mail. How long will I think about this? I don’t know, but I can guarantee Perfect Days will stick with me for the rest of my life.

Grade: A