It's more of a painting than a movie. "PERFECT DAYS"

2024/02/18

First of all, I want you to watch it without looking up anything.

Now that I've finished watching the movie,
I don't need the opinions of movie critic YouTubers.
I want to chew on these impressions myself a bit more.
That's the feeling that remains.

And then, as time passes,
when my current environment or something else changes,
I want to go watch it again.

For now, I just want to write down what I felt purely, without clouding it.
It includes spoilers.
And it's a work like no other I've encountered, where I feel like I'd love to have a quiet drink with someone who has also chewed on what they felt after watching this film.

It's more of a painting than a movie.

What do you think when you look at this painting?
It's a work that acts like a values detector,
where you could likely become deep friends with someone whose sensibilities match your own.

The polar opposite of my favorite movies, "YES MAN" and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"

The movies that changed my life are "YES MAN" and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty".
If you take action, if you accumulate experiences, you can grow. If you don't fear change, you can find your own kind of happiness.
They are precious works that helped create my experience-first way of living.

This film is positioned at the exact opposite end.
But, it's a work I want to rewatch just as much as "YES MAN" and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty".
If I had to put it into words,
"PERFECT DAYS" is a work that reflects on how to live.
"YES MAN" and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" are works that change your life.

"It's the kind of movie you'd fall asleep watching at home, right?"

A couple who had finished watching the film said,
"It's the kind of movie you'd fall asleep watching at home, right?"

In a sense, that might be true.
Perhaps that's how much people crave dramatic stories in their content.
On the other hand, what about your own life?
It hasn't changed. You're probably afraid of it changing.

Daily happiness is so small that we often don't even notice it.
Is seeking anything more than that what it means to keep on living?

Sometimes happy, sometimes sad

Within this film, which progresses mainly with 1970s cassette tape music,
there is a lyric that says [sometime happy sometime sad].

There are sad events that confront you with the reality of an indifferent world where people live in completely different spheres—like when a parent of a lost child you helped while cleaning a restroom wipes their hands excessively with sanitizing sheets due to prejudice against restroom cleaners, or when a drunken salaryman kicks over the "Cleaning in Progress" sign and treats the cleaner as if they don't exist.

At the same time, there are small happinesses in daily life, even if they might seem trivial, like a lost child waving to thank you, or being sincerely thanked by overseas tourists after teaching them how to use the restroom.

[sometime happy sometime sad]That is daily life, and that is life itself.Thinking that being able to be grateful for those small happinesses is what makes for a perfect day brought me to tears.

Why must we change?

People who change, people who don't change, people who give up, people who don't belong to any world.The protagonist is a "person who doesn't change" and a "person who cannot change."

The total entertainment value of this work is worth 10,000 yen, or rather, happiness within 5,000 yen.
Perfect days where you notice the happiness you usually overlook.
However, that does not last forever.
People decline, consume, and the environment and surroundings change at a speed we do not notice.

Is a perfect day truly happiness?

The protagonist's conflict of being unable to go see his parents.
The expression in the final scene, a mixture of sorrow and joy.
It seems like he is choosing not to change, but perhaps he is unable to change?
If you do not change, you will become unable to change even if you want to.
Those who change will keep changing forever.
It is not a matter of which is better or worse.
That is what I thought.

Sunlight filtering through the trees. Each day is perfect and unique, never to be repeated.

How much easier would it be if we could live cherishing the small happiness found in our daily lives?
And the importance of realizing that happiness without pretense is true happiness.
This is something I do not want to forget.

But I cannot stay there.
I must not become happy only with perfect days.
That is where I am right now.

That is precisely why I think, 'I wish I could live like that.'