Perfect Days (4k) (Wbr) (Ac3) (Sub) (Ws)

THE best movie I have seen in years. You will remember and think about this movie long after you see it.

Everybody in the world (perhaps, with a few exceptions) loves watching movies. What they actually experience when they watch something can only be the subject of conjecture. Japanese cinema is in a class all by itself. Ozu, Kurosawa and Imamura (to name just three out of hundreds of other examples) produced undisputed masterpieces of triumphant storytelling but what each of these masters truly have in common is the detailed exploration of morally complex individuals and their relationships with other equally complex humans. Do their films have complex incidents; are they plot-driven action films? Maybe the answer is yes for most of Kurosawa’s oeuvre but it is definitely a no for the others. Western cinema, despite the brave and impulsive arthouse auteurs, tends to be fuelled by inciting incident and plot development and this tendency is perhaps the style that a lot of film-watchers expect. So it is no surprise that a lot of reviewers on this page find Mr Wender’s film boring. His central character’s day consists of getting up, going to work, stopping off at his friend's yakitori stand for a bite to eat and then going to bed. On weekends he goes to the bath house and reads Hemingway. Somehow, however (and this is a sign of Mr Wender’s mastery), this is hugely compelling and instructive which leads to the question: Why is that? In Perfect Days Mr Wenders has tapped into the storytelling style of the Japanese cinema greats. His effort is given enormous momentum through the casting of Koji Yakusho who plays the toilet cleaner Hirayama. Yakusho has the power to convey the lived experience of Hirayama and Mr Wenders creates the space and the mise en scene to allow Yakusho to weave his extraordinary magic. The original question most probably should be: Should entertainment require effort? All of Mr Wender’s films generally require a large degree of the work to be done by the audience but that effort usually results in tremendous reward as it does in the case of this film.

No lo pudo leer mi Blu-ray ni en el de mi Xbox Series X. Además Criterion debería ampliar sus horizontes con regiones y subtítulos, limitarse al inglés es bastante retrógrada.

Easily my favourite movie of 2023 and the extra features on Criterion discs are always fantastic. A quick description of the movie - it follows a man whose job is cleaning toilets in the Tokyo sanitation system - doesn't do it justice. It's a meditation of a quiet life, finding beauty in routine and life's small moments.

I highly recommend this movie! I saw this a year ago and absolutely fell in love with it's simple beauty of living life with an old soul.