
Hirayama (played by Kōji Yakusho), in Wim Wenders’s 2023 film, Perfect Days.
Someone told me once that I lived a monkish life. She meant something vaguely Buddhist rather than vaguely Catholic, I think, but when pressed she said only that I was bald, lived quietly, read books and wrote a lot, and liked to walk and cook as if they were meditative activities. I was not sure if I was under indictment.
It took me longer to understand she liked her enlightenment purchasable and fast-acting. For her first heavy experience with hallucinogens she flew to a luxury retreat in the Costa Rican jungle. The “shaman” in charge offered à la carte drug-and-dose options. The woman demanded the “god dose” of ayahuasca. The shaman and attendants shifted uneasily under the spa tents: Are you sure? She was: she wanted to get to the bottom of it all now.
The film Perfect Days (2023), directed by Wim Wenders, challenges us, starting with its title, to consider what it means to live an enlightened, fulfilled life.
Our hero, Hirayama (played by the wonderful Kōji Yakusho), lives a life of public service, without ego or demands. He seems to be made happy, even joyous, observing nature (in the world’s biggest city), taking photos, reading books, listening to music, and people-watching. His first act on leaving his modest apartment each day is to look to the sky and smile. His is the sort of routine we might call “engagement” or “simplicity” instead of “rote.”
He does clean toilets in the parks for a living (using a scrub pad for dishes, not even a handled brush), seems to have no relationships with any depth, and is apparently on the run from memories of an abusive father. His sister is rich and disdains him. The poor man does not even dream in color.
He is woken every morning by the sound of a woman sweeping the street with a broom, which tells him it is time for him to rise, drink his canned coffee from a vending machine, and go clean too. Time is the sound of cleaning, and the act of cleaning can never be finished, only done better or worse.
The tension of whether his are perfect days or not is drama enough. If the film had been brazen and left it at that, I would have been very satisfied. But as happens in most lives, perhaps even those in the monasteries, unexpected characters appear with their own passions and intrude on Hirayama’s peace. As a compassionate person he is forced into new roles, which create emotional turmoil that serves as another layer of drama.
Are these encounters opportunities too for perfect days, of another kind? Hirayama must give away some of his calm and fulfillment to help. He finds himself chugging beer after dark on the banks of the river and choking on cigs called Peace. But the others who needed someone have been provided some amount of what they need to go on.
Call it communion: Time as awareness by love.