PERFECT DAYS | Inoperative Masculinity and Unconnectable Desire

Introduction: Beyond the Misreading of a 'Healing' Film

PERFECT DAYS is often received with terms like
'mindful living,' 'minimalism,' and 'a monk-like way of life.'

Certainly, the regular routine, simple life, and quiet repetition provide the viewer with a sense of security. But is this film truly a presentation of such an ideal life?

In this essay, I would like to re-read this work not as a story of 'healing' or 'voluntary poverty,' but as the story of a man who could not update himself. The keys to this are the sound design, the Skytree as a symbol of the city, and the concept of <inoperative masculinity / unconnectable desire>.

The Man Who Keeps Making Sound

PERFECT DAYS is a film extremely sensitive to sound.
It begins with environmental sounds, transitions to the sounds of daily life, and eventually, the protagonist's work sounds and footsteps set a rhythm. The audience is made to experience the day of the man played by Koji Yakusho almost entirely as 'sound'.

What is important is that this man is not a silent existence.
He is not a hermit who has retreated from the world in silence. Rather, he is constantly making noise and continuing to operate.

Appearing as a contrast to this is the homeless man who appears on screen. In scenes where he is shown, the sound becomes sparse. This difference does not represent life and death, good and evil, or happiness and unhappiness.

What is depicted here is the difference between whether one is operating or has already let go of operation.

The protagonist is still making sound. That is precisely why this life, while peaceful, is somehow painful.

Time Moored in the 60s

The man uses cassette tapes in his car and keeps listening to music from the 60s.
This is not mere nostalgia.

The choice of the cassette medium and the repeated song selections indicate that he is living in the present while keeping his time moored in a certain era of the past.

What is important here is not to specify 'something' from the 60s. It could be a political setback, or perhaps a personal failure or resignation. The film does not speak of its content.

Without being spoken of, only the state of 'updates having stopped' is presented.
His life is regular not because of the strength of his will, but because he remains within a structure where no change occurs.

Inoperative Masculinity, Unconnectable Desire

It is a mistake to read this man as a monk or an ascetic being.
He did not voluntarily cut off his desires, nor did he choose voluntary poverty as an ethical choice.

The term that best describes his state is likely inoperative masculinity.

It is not a castrated state. Desire remains. However, that desire is not connected to reality.

Women exist within the film. They are not absent.
Even so, relationships are not established, distance is maintained, and a definitive connection is avoided.

This is not impotence, but rather inconnectability.
The circuit through which desire moves toward the future remains severed, and only the daily routine persists.

The Skytree as a Symbol of Non-Identification

The Skytree exudes a strange presence in this film.
It is shown repeatedly from various angles with a frequency that cannot be explained simply by the fact that a foreign director filmed Tokyo.

The Skytree is a massive, active vertical structure in contemporary Japan, and in the context of film history, it can be read as a tower—a symbol of masculinity.

What is important is that the protagonist and the Skytree are never identified with each other.
He is not castrated. Nor is he denied.
He is simply not connected.

The Skytree does not judge him, encourage him, or tempt him. It simply stands as a background.
This non-identification is precisely what makes his inoperative masculinity visible.

A Man Who Is Not Redeemed

"PERFECT DAYS" does not redeem this man.
At the same time, it does not condemn him.

He does not recover, but he does not collapse either.
Unable to update himself, he still finishes the day.

That is why this film is neither a moral lesson nor a social critique.
What is depicted is simply the persistence of one man.

As long as the sound continues, he is alive.
A day may come when the sound stops.
However, the film does not depict that moment.

That is the sincerity and the cruelty of this work.

Conclusion

"PERFECT DAYS" is not a film that presents an ideal way of life.
It is a work that depicts, through sound and repetition, the figure of a man who could not update himself, yet still lives through today.

It is easy to consume it as a form of healing.
However, if one overlooks the dysfunction and inconnectability behind it, the bitterness of this film will be lost.

"Red Rocket" as an Auxiliary Line

Here, I would like to draw another film as an auxiliary line: Sean Baker's "Red Rocket." In this film, where a washed-up porn actor returns from the city to his hometown, countless chimneys in the industrial zone appear in the frame repeatedly. This is not a record of the land, but a device to visually repeat dysfunctional masculinity. It is an excessive, cluttered, vertical structure that once operated but is now empty.

"PERFECT DAYS" and "Red Rocket" are completely different in their surface tone and character portrayals. However, if you dig into the layers, the same structure emerges. In the former, the Skytree stands alone, while in the latter, chimneys rise in a cluster. Although both are vertical structures symbolizing masculinity, they are never self-identified with the protagonist. What exists there is not a castrated lack, but a desire that remains present yet cannot be connected.

If "Red Rocket" is a film that externalizes this noisily and comically, "PERFECT DAYS" can be said to be a film that makes it extremely silent and internalized. While they look like opposites, both are speaking to the same question—inoperative masculinity and the destination of its desire—using different grammars.