RIFLE RANGE BOY: Epicurean

Perfect Days (Japanese, 2023)
Director: Wim Wenders

(Please note: It is plural, not singular. Every day is a perfect day, and there are many!)

This is a reminder to recreational cyclists over 60: Just enjoy every opportunity that comes your way. By the twist of fate or alms from karma, you can go out, pedal, and feel the wind whisk by as you zoom downhill. Only some people are gifted with the privilege to do this. There is no need to outdo a fellow cyclist, go all out for a personal record, or invest in a state-of-the-art, spanking-new machine to keep up with the Joneses. Every completed cycling route happens on a perfect day. There will be many perfect days.

This beautifully crafted film gets all my thumbs up. It moves very slowly with apparently no definite direction, but that, in essence, that is the message behind the movie. We should find happiness in the things around us.

The protagonist, Hirayama, is a creature of routine. He gets up to the rhythmic pace of a street sweeper sweeping the street. From that, it is like clockwork. Folding his mattress neatly, washing up, trimming his moustache, slipping into his overalls, and getting his keys organised, he exits his door. He looks out gleefully at the morning sky. Next is coffee from the vending machine, and gets into his working van. In the truck, he listens to songs that suit his mood on a cassette player! He is a proud, dedicated worker who cleans public toilets.

Even though he realises that he is viewed with condescension, he knows his job is essential and does it diligently.

His lunchtime routine is also set. Armed with a packet of drinks and a sandwich, he sits on the same park bench every day, observing people and seeing the ray of light dancing through the shadows of the leaf (Komorebi*). He snaps moments he finds something fascinating on his analogue automatic camera (with physical films!). His mobile phone is also an analogue. He is content without learning to take digital photos or using apps like Spotify. He sneers at them and is pleasantly surprised that his cassette can fetch much money if sold. He is happy having his daily bath at the public bath and eating from the same stall at the food court. Once in a while, he would visit a lady who runs her small restaurant and sometimes sings for her customers.

A few things happen in his mundane life. His niece, his sister's daughter, runs away from her wealthy home for a few days. Hirayama's sister turns up, and we learn about his animosity or disagreement with his ailing father. The lady restaurant, whom Hirayama secretly fancies, is seen caught in a passionate embrace with an unknown man.

He threads everything in a stride and never fails to catch up by reading classic short stories and essays before he retires for the night, including Shakespeare and Faulkner.

Our minds like to wander. Probably because of that, a regimental style of life is prescribed to live right. We are told to live simply. Unfortunately, it does not work at a collective level. If everyone maintains an Epicurean form of living, being content with the bare minimum and not venturing beyond his comfort zone or, like Sissyphus, accepting his fate as someone who needs to find happiness within his endless rolling up the boulder and it rolling back, the human race would still be dwelling in caves! 'Now is now' and 'next time is next time', as Hiroyama advocates, give peace of mind to an individual, not protect the community from adversities. 4.5/5.

* Komorebi is a Japanese word that means the play of sunlight through leaves.

** Hirayama's excellent cassette collection includes Lou Reed, the Kinks, Otis Redding, Velvet Underground, the Rolling Stones, and more

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Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death. Arthur Schopenhauer.

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