photograph: Deadline

I often wonder what audiences would think if my life was made into its own slice. It’d mostly be me, going to class, hustling to work, attending meetings, and watching movies. I spent years fascinated by the thought of going to college, fantasizing about all the fun I’d have, how I’d be thrilled by every reading, excelling with every paper, and yet still social all the time. So, when I finally made it here, I was surprised by how difficult and routine everything really is.

Perfect Days is a slice-of-life film in its purest form. It’s not overly ambitious, eager to maintain audience attention, appeasing them with surprise appearances or other gimmicks. It relishes in monotony, the beauty in standard routine. The film follows Hirayama (Kōji Yakusho), a toilet cleaner in Tokyo who spends each day the same way. With a simple disposition and an incredible music taste, Hirayama silently, and ritualistically goes about his days, gracing his interactions with grace and kindness. His music taste is, again, impeccable, driving to tunes such as “Brown Eyed Girl” and “House of the Rising Sun” on cassettes (hooray for physical media!) The sudden appearance of his niece, Niko (Arisa Nakano) changes his life ever so slightly, giving him the opportunity to share his routine with someone else.

The entrance of Niko doesn’t radically shake up the story like it might in a different film, instead, she eases into the pattern of Hirayama’s life, celebrating the gift of sharing one’s routine with another, all the intricacies and small moments that illuminate it.

I’ve written previously on slow cinema and how important the theatrical experience is to it, and though Perfect Days isn’t as emphatically slow as other films in the genre, watching it in a theater is still an essential experience. It’s in the silent collective, aching similarly, falling in love similarly, while glued to the screen. In small outbursts of laughter and moments of tearful silence, every inch of the audience (like that of the screen) is amplified in cinematic intimacy and love. The subtle celebration of humanity in Perfect Days is exemplified in its viewing experience. If there is a cure for loneliness, for being wrought with boredom and distressed in monotony, it can likely be found at the movies.

Perfect Days asserts, with subtlety and again, lots of awesome music, that there is exceptional beauty in routine, in a standard, supposedly uneventful life. It doesn’t cater to attention spans or seek to keep audiences stimulated; it’s intentional, slow, and lovely if you let it be what it is, and enjoy every delightful moment of the routine. Perhaps the routine of my own, if illustrated by Wim Wenders, could be seen as just as fulfilling. Maybe we’ll call it Perfect Blog Posts. A girl can dream!
Perfect Days is screening everywhere now.

Until next Wednesday,

Karenna

Slices of Life

photograph: Deadline