Perfect Days: The Habitual Sublime
Does routine guide us through blissfully living in the present, or is it just a way to endure through the invariability of everyday life without thought? Are we masking our dependency on control by a seamless morning routine followed by the same breakfast Monday to Sunday, or is it the true key to inner peace? Perfect Days directed by Wim Wenders is arguably one of the most repetitive pieces of cinema produced in the past few years compared to the fast-paced films trending nowadays. Across 124 minutes, we follow Hirayama, a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo through his seemingly monotonous days. Resting in the velvet cinema armchairs, one is presented the beauty of routine and the question of whether it is enough as a sole source of happiness.
Despite the beautiful architecture of the public toilets in Tokyo, intuitively the spectator is first put off by the act of toilet cleaning. However, that initial repulsion is converted into admiration because of the joy and humanity one sees in Hirayama and how content he is with his day-to-day practices. Perfect Days highlights the tool of analog culture in capturing the ordinary of the present moment. Hirayama listens to upbeat cassettes when driving to work in the morning, carries a film camera to photograph the movement of the trees on his lunch break, and reads William Faulkner (et al.) before bed. He underlines the beauty in the usual and how analog media allows us to access the world around us from a detailed lens. Perhaps hinting at why I myself love my analog camera, not because of the subtle grain it casts on my pictures, and definitely not for the trendiness of the mustard yellow Kodak, but because of the slowed repetitive process, which makes the surprise of the multi-month old shots that much more rewarding.
Film still from Perfect Days by Wim Wenders (2023).
Wenders asserts that inner peace is what causes a perfect day and therefore a perfect life, but the inability to measure it is what showcases the talent of actor Koji Yakusho. In modern day western culture, we rely on wealth, beauty, and physical health as indicators of perfection or happiness, which can all be externally assessed. After all, impressions of strangers are based on these observable characteristics: a couple of seconds to gauge how ‘perfect’ the woman across the street is or how ‘fit’ the man across the counter appears to be. However, what is made to be the most important by the film –inner peace and wellbeing– cannot be assessed or seen from the outside but only known from within. In this way, Perfect Days defies the expectation of a toilet cleaner with a narrow apartment being miserable by demonstrating that he makes his days perfect with the inner peace he derives from routine and gratitude. In fact, Hirayama has no remarkable actions throughout the film, but rather it is the accomplishment of doing it over and over again that brings peace to the viewer, and more importantly, to Hirayama himself.
Film still from Perfect Days by Wim Wenders (2023).
Sitting in that room, watching this movie, I thought of the oddly relaxing 37 times I had taken the same blue-interiored tram to the cinema in the course of my life. Of course, 37 was a ballpark, but interestingly enough, every time I took that tram to watch a movie it was perfect; the uncontrolled noise before the lull of the cinema; the striking presence of colors in the vehicle followed by the darkness before the film. The experience itself (of riding my tram to the movies) had never occurred to me as anything special, until I realized it was the beauty of repetition and habit itself that made it perfect.
Film still from Perfect Days by Wim Wenders (2023).