Trying, a film essay by Sean Maher.

Perfect Days is a film directed by Wim Wenders about a Japanese man who lives and works in Tokyo, Japan. There is a subtlety to the film, in how unsubtle the direction is. Things are shown plainly. Dreams are the murkiest part of the film. Every time Hirayama goes to sleep we see a strange version of reality portrayed in black and white. A dream reality. The black and white images fade into one another and sometimes the images relate directly to what just happened and sometimes they don’t. 

This film is more than anything about the days of a man’s life which he aims to live alone. He wakes up and waters little saplings sitting under ultra violet lights in a room in his home. He exits the front door and looks at the sky. There are some people he just doesn’t want to say a word to. They can speak to him but he doesn’t need to say a thing so he doesn’t. Around the beginning it focuses heavily on the routine of his job. He cleans toilets around Tokyo. He works with a foolish man who wants to do anything but the job. This man is me from a few weeks ago but now I feel more like Hirayama today. Getting up in the morning and getting to work. Routine can become a beautiful thing. To know where one is within that hour or that hour. Hirayama works thoroughly. He cleans like it is his life’s purpose. He ends the day with reading a book. After watching this film I started reading. I mean as a writer you’d expect I would read but I really didn’t. I didn’t spend my free time reading. But now I do. It has become part of my life, my routine. 

 If the movie was just routine it would be interesting but it also wouldn’t have real content we expect from a narrative. The way routine is interrupted by life is important to this story. While Hirayama is cleaning sometimes he has to get out of the way for someone who really has to use the bathroom. Or there are moments when he sees a homeless person who acts strangely. He practices these movements, this almost dance.  These ghosts come in and out of his life without much thought but they interrupt his attention. But the day marches on. One day he drives his foolish coworker to a date with the date in his little truck full of cleaning supplies. These little fanciful interruptions are both mundane and interesting. He seems like he depends on his routine to feel stable. He doesn’t want to be confronted by his day. This first real interruption is a deviation from his day but also is pretty mundane. 

Later in the film, his niece comes to his house as a runaway. She doesn’t mention the fact that she ran away and I didn’t think about it but it’s quite obvious in hindsight. She joins him while he cleans toilets for the first day. Getting up at the crack of dawn. They spend time together. He is still quiet but they seem to really enjoy each other’s company. He has to sleep in a closet though. It is a wonderful interruption. This does not last. His sister comes to his home and tells her daughter to get in the vehicle. Earlier in the movie the niece implies that there is something wrong between her mother and Hirayama. There is clearly tension between the two. She tears up when she learns that he is indeed cleaning toilets. She tells him that their father is becoming vacant from dementia, vacant of anger and disappointment she implies. She is wealthy. You can tell by her car and her driver. After this extended episode with his niece. He is shaken up. Anxiety comes to the surface. His next day just isn’t right. He has to work a double shift because the foolish coworker quit. The next day is a day off, things still don’t feel right and at the end of it he buys a pack of cigarettes and some beer.

I think this moment more than anything reminds me of a change I want to make and a moment I lived through. My days are full of escape. I scroll through Youtube. I waste my time with content I don’t really like. I put my work off to the last moment. I half ass the life I live. I want to be different. I seek a routine where I put myself and my health first. I want his routine. Where he needs spontaneity and people, I need routine and focus. 

There was a moment where I felt utter despair at all that I needed to do to pass this last year at the University of Maine at Farmington. Now I’ve started with one step at a time. I write in the morning, read afterwards and then I start working on any school assignment I need done. Work is hard but it is its own reward. It’s working so far but I’m afraid I’ll go back to that space. Day wasting. Boring and bitter. I don’t want to let perfect days slip right by.