It has been a while since I wrote about a movie. I came across “Perfect Days” on my MUBI subscription with Amazon Prime Video. The first time around, I managed to see only 10 minutes of the film. There was something arresting about the film so I did not abandon watching it altogether.

A week later, I started the film from the beginning, and I was not disappointed.

The story starts with the main character “Hirayama” played by Kōji Yakusho, waking up in his small apartment. He goes about his day diligently. He cleans public toilets for The Tokyo Toilet . I admit for the first 20 minutes or so, I questioned if this film would explore a voyeuristic journey. It seemed to celebrate the perceived ordinary life of an ordinary person.

Hirayama lives in solitude and his days seems to be on repeat. But each day is slightly different from the other and in that difference, appears Hirayama’s outlook towards life.

He smiles at the sky and enjoys the sun when he steps out of his house. He looks knowingly at trees and photographs them as a quirky hobby. A deeper sense of Hirayama’s goodness, his happiness emerge out of the mundane.

Hirayama has unique quirks. He takes a small tiny sapling from a public garden. He photographs ordinary things around him and the light through the trees. Obviously, he enjoys playing music from the 70s in his automobile van’s cassette player. One scene has someone tell him about Spotify and he asks if this it is a shop. Throughout the repetitive days, these quirky habits bring him interactions with people. At times, they just give him a happy moment.

Most cinema is about chasing a dream, being ambitious and finding validation and happiness in being success. In many ways “Perfect Days” is the exact opposite. It suggests that to be happy, we need to find happiness in being present each day.

The official website for Perfect Days is a work of art! I highly recommend traversing through it on https://www.perfectdays-movie.jp/en/ after you have seen the film. I love when a website becomes a medium of art in itself.