RIFLE RANGE BOY

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...

So it all takes is for someone to snoop around to look for another destination. A place where people lead an idyllic life living in symbiosis with the elements of Nature with the divine forces as their guiding light. Venture capitalists move in. They show them the carrot and the lure of what money can do to enrich their 'impoverished' lives. They influence the elders who steamroll all oppositions who want to maintain the status quo. The general public thinks the opposers are just spoiled sports, reminiscing the old times, living in the past and naysayers who do not move with the times. The time to live is now, and they do not want to be left behind. So builds a frenzy to join the bandwagon to draw sightseers to see what they had to offer. They were willing to play dance monkey to the tune of the first world revellers. Slowly, the native's lives change. Their age-old tradition of caring for humanity rather than worldly materialistic things is but a thing of the past. Ri...