In ‘Perfect Days’, time tramples suffering and routine becomes a source of happiness

[Atenção: O texto abaixo contém spoilers de Dias Perfeitos]

Hirayama rises before the sun, always to the sound of a lady sweeping leaves from the street near her bedroom window. He puts on his work uniform, waters plant seedlings that he grows in another room and leaves his small apartment smiling at the sky. For breakfast, all you need is a can of coffee fresh from a machine.

The character played by Kōji Yakusho walks around Tokyo to visit public toilets. Supported by technologies that seem distant from Brazilian reality, the bathrooms in Japan were precisely the inspiration for the director Wim Wenders give life to Perfect Days. There is a certain irony, in fact, in Hirayama’s profession: no matter how advanced the resources that equip Japanese bathrooms are, it is up to a man of around 60 to clean these places every day.

It may seem like a miserable routine, but Hirayama has fun as an observer. The sign indicating that the bathroom is unusable is almost always ignored and the character ends up being seen from above by those who need to have a moment alone with the toilet.

Life passes before Hirayama’s eyes, who seems to be the only one who pays attention to the noises that human beings make in nature, like a man who dances in front of a bathroom in a park without any music.

Noises also confuse the protagonist’s loneliness. His person in charge, Takashi, needs to clean public bathrooms to earn money, but he is not very dedicated. The young man receives friends at work and even asks his boss to give his romantic interest, Aya, a ride. When he comes across the collection of cassette tapes that Hirayama keeps in his car to listen to on the radio, he comes up with a plan: sell the antiques to take Aya on a date.

Without saying a single word, Hirayama convinces Takashi to return the tapes to him, but relents by giving money from his own pocket to the boy. Fate strikes shortly afterwards, when his van breaks down in the middle of the road and he has in his hands only an empty wallet and a rare — and valuable — cassette tape. Lou Reed.

The title given to the film that competes for the Oscar for Best International Film for Japan makes reference to the song of the same name by reed — “Perfect Days”. Hirayama’s days seem truly perfect. He wakes up early, works, listens to his favorite music, goes to a bathhouse (called a sento, in Japan), always has dinner at a gallery restaurant and ends the day reading a book (authors like Aya Koda, Patricia Highsmith It is William Faulkner appear). In other words, his days are also perfect in metrics.

Hirayama only sees the need to use a wristwatch on weekends, when he wakes up a little later. The dirty clothes are taken to the laundry, and he goes to a more sophisticated restaurant, which is run by Mama, a woman who appears to be close to his age.

Anyone who has experienced lonely days living alone, for example, must have noticed that their own voice is only heard inside their head, until they have to say a few words to a delivery person or the doorman. Hirayama avoids putting himself in uncomfortable conversations, but he dialogues with other characters and the viewer very well.

With the arrival of the niece at home, the bathroom cleaner starts to share the routine. The girl introduces her uncle to Spotify and finally mentions the Skytree, seen by Hirayama on his way to work.

While the niece pays attention to the development, the uncle sticks to the “analog” trees, which he photographs every day with an Olympus camera. Even Hirayama’s dreams are black and white and silent. In the original language, the film Wenders called Komorebi“a Japanese word for the flickering light and shadows created by the swaying of leaves in the wind.”

An episode in which Hirayama’s routine needs to be broken and the departure of his niece takes the character out of his comfort zone. When picking up her daughter, Hirayama’s sister, who arrives with the help of a private driver, questions whether that was really the life she was leading. Takashi had also already raised: “How can you dedicate yourself so much to a job like that?” The conversation suggests that he moved away from his family to live the way he wanted and that his relationship with his father suffered a breakdown.

You don’t need to delve into Hirayama’s background to feel the weight of his feelings. Story of a Marriage (2019) gave something to talk about with the fight between the characters of Adam Driver It is Scarlett Johansson. The divorcing couple lets it all out through raised voices. Past livesin Celine SongIt is Perfect Days they do the opposite and move through silence and the expression of sensations that, in the end, cannot be verbalized. Therefore, the performance of Kōji Yakusho It’s sharp.

“Next time is next time, now is now”, Hirayama teaches his niece after dismissing a trip suggested by her.

The tenderness he shows around Mama indicates that he retains a passion for her, but likes to keep everything as it is, without proposing a relationship. When he sees her having a sentimental moment with another man, however, he skips the meal and goes drinking on the banks of a canal. The man finds him, clarifies that the hug with Mama was not a romantic gesture and asks: “Do shadows get darker when they overlap?”

Hirayama decides that “now is now” and takes a test. “Nothing changes after all”, he notes when superimposing shadows. Not even inconveniences can slow down the pace of time. There is suffering in happiness and that is what makes it Perfect Days so accurate.