Express News Service
Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days ends with a plain but peerless shot—an extended closeup of its protagonist Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) gently smiling, looking up at the sky with a mix of gratitude and bliss, his face beautifully dappled with sunlight, listening to Nina Simone’s song Feeling Good. A popular song that verbalizes the essence of his being.
A sliver of eternal sunshine resides permanently in Hirayama’s spotless mind. He feels good every day as he wakes up with the sound of the cleaner’s broom on the street, neatly folds his bedding, and stacks it in the corner of a room that is filled with books and music cassettes beside his own solitary self. He then gets ready with the ease of a long-familiar routine and drives away in a van filled with varied contraptions to clean the toilets of Tokyo.
Life away from his job is just as regimented. Clicking pictures of trees during lunch break, a cycle ride to the public bath, dinner at the favourite eatery and the day ending in the company of a book. On his days off work, it’s the routine of laundry, the library, and drinks with friends. With apologies to Samuel Beckett, in the uneventful life of Hirayama, “nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes”, but it’s certainly not “awful”. It’s all about finding contentment than being driven by covetousness.
After Tokyo-Ga, the 1985 documentary on the legendary Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, and another in 1989 called Notebook on Cities and Clothes, on fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto, the German filmmaker focuses on a mundane man, invisibilised in the urban jungle of Japan—a janitor—but manages to dredge out the poetic and philosophical from the prosaic. In fact, a dialogue in Tran Anh Hung’s The Pot au Feu, aka, The Passion of Dodin Bouffant seems to resonate with the underlying theme of Perfect Days: “Happiness is continuing to desire what we already have.” It’s about living in the moment and cherishing it. As Hirayama himself puts it: “Next time is next time, now is now”.
Wenders’ Perfect Days is a character study in which the narrative keeps pace with its protagonist, flowing meditatively, in tune with his calm, centred self. Like him, it’s uncomplicated but steadily cumulative in its impact. Every day is alike and yet not quite. There are newer facets of people and life that are revealed and the quirks of living alone are interrupted and challenged by an unexpected young visitor. Hirayama himself is not as rigidly defined as we might assume him to be. There is a sad past, regrets, the burden of estranged relations, a rare bond with an unseen stranger and unspoken feelings for someone.
There are several themes Perfect Days visits through Hirayama. Like practicing scrupulous work ethics than being self-serving. “How do you put in so much in a job like this?” he is asked by his younger wayward colleague Takeshi.
It’s about the generation gap that invariably sets in as maturity rubs shoulders with callowness and eventually both gain from each other. Hirayama has clearly travelled a long way to arrive at the serenity he possesses, by paring down life to the bare necessities, finding mellowness by embracing a spartan lifestyle, and eschewing cynicism for stoicism. Wenders’ filmmaking itself might be straightforward and minimal but rich in emotions and eloquent with meaning.
Yakusho’s face is like a canvas painted with fleeting expressions. A man of few words, his Hirayama barely ever speaks. The background score of his life includes Van Morrison, The Kinks’ Sunny Afternoon, Rolling Stones’ Walking Through the Sleepy City and most of all The Animals’ House of Rising Sun, and its wonderful Japanese version. The film even takes its title from Lou Reed’s Perfect Day.
However, much as I am haunted by him, I keep thinking of a Sahir Ludhianvi-Jaidev song from the 1961 Hindi film Hum Dono as the Hirayama anthem. It captures his Zen, resolved persona and inner equanimity: “Gham aur khushi mein farq na mehsoos ho jahan, main dil ko us muqaam pe lata chala gaya… (I tried to arrive at a stage in life where sadness and happiness felt no different from each other, leaving me unmoved by both).”Perfect Days is a sublime validation of the ordinary, a film replete with grace, harmony, and hope that overwhelms and engulfs you in its humane world.
Cinema Without BordersIn this weekly column, the writer explores the non-Indian films that are making the right noises across the globe. This week, we talk about Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days
Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days ends with a plain but peerless shot—an extended closeup of its protagonist Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) gently smiling, looking up at the sky with a mix of gratitude and bliss, his face beautifully dappled with sunlight, listening to Nina Simone’s song Feeling Good. A popular song that verbalizes the essence of his being.
A sliver of eternal sunshine resides permanently in Hirayama’s spotless mind. He feels good every day as he wakes up with the sound of the cleaner’s broom on the street, neatly folds his bedding, and stacks it in the corner of a room that is filled with books and music cassettes beside his own solitary self. He then gets ready with the ease of a long-familiar routine and drives away in a van filled with varied contraptions to clean the toilets of Tokyo.
Life away from his job is just as regimented. Clicking pictures of trees during lunch break, a cycle ride to the public bath, dinner at the favourite eatery and the day ending in the company of a book. On his days off work, it’s the routine of laundry, the library, and drinks with friends. With apologies to Samuel Beckett, in the uneventful life of Hirayama, “nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes”, but it’s certainly not “awful”. It’s all about finding contentment than being driven by covetousness.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });
After Tokyo-Ga, the 1985 documentary on the legendary Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, and another in 1989 called Notebook on Cities and Clothes, on fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto, the German filmmaker focuses on a mundane man, invisibilised in the urban jungle of Japan—a janitor—but manages to dredge out the poetic and philosophical from the prosaic. In fact, a dialogue in Tran Anh Hung’s The Pot au Feu, aka, The Passion of Dodin Bouffant seems to resonate with the underlying theme of Perfect Days: “Happiness is continuing to desire what we already have.” It’s about living in the moment and cherishing it. As Hirayama himself puts it: “Next time is next time, now is now”.
Wenders’ Perfect Days is a character study in which the narrative keeps pace with its protagonist, flowing meditatively, in tune with his calm, centred self. Like him, it’s uncomplicated but steadily cumulative in its impact. Every day is alike and yet not quite. There are newer facets of people and life that are revealed and the quirks of living alone are interrupted and challenged by an unexpected young visitor. Hirayama himself is not as rigidly defined as we might assume him to be. There is a sad past, regrets, the burden of estranged relations, a rare bond with an unseen stranger and unspoken feelings for someone.
There are several themes Perfect Days visits through Hirayama. Like practicing scrupulous work ethics than being self-serving. “How do you put in so much in a job like this?” he is asked by his younger wayward colleague Takeshi.
It’s about the generation gap that invariably sets in as maturity rubs shoulders with callowness and eventually both gain from each other. Hirayama has clearly travelled a long way to arrive at the serenity he possesses, by paring down life to the bare necessities, finding mellowness by embracing a spartan lifestyle, and eschewing cynicism for stoicism. Wenders’ filmmaking itself might be straightforward and minimal but rich in emotions and eloquent with meaning.
Yakusho’s face is like a canvas painted with fleeting expressions. A man of few words, his Hirayama barely ever speaks. The background score of his life includes Van Morrison, The Kinks’ Sunny Afternoon, Rolling Stones’ Walking Through the Sleepy City and most of all The Animals’ House of Rising Sun, and its wonderful Japanese version. The film even takes its title from Lou Reed’s Perfect Day.
However, much as I am haunted by him, I keep thinking of a Sahir Ludhianvi-Jaidev song from the 1961 Hindi film Hum Dono as the Hirayama anthem. It captures his Zen, resolved persona and inner equanimity: “Gham aur khushi mein farq na mehsoos ho jahan, main dil ko us muqaam pe lata chala gaya… (I tried to arrive at a stage in life where sadness and happiness felt no different from each other, leaving me unmoved by both).”Perfect Days is a sublime validation of the ordinary, a film replete with grace, harmony, and hope that overwhelms and engulfs you in its humane world.
Cinema Without Borders
In this weekly column, the writer explores the non-Indian films that are making the right noises across the globe. This week, we talk about Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days