Poster for Perfect Days
Jesse Pasternack explains why Perfect Days exemplifies the subgenre he has named “what if [blank] was Paddington and did [blank],” wherein a cheerful protagonist experiences the joys of everyday life while helping others.
Every cinephile enjoys coining a term to describe their favorite subgenre. There’s something satisfying about taking a series of disparate films, drawing connections between them, and creating a name that describes them perfectly, a little like how you might wrap a little bow around a present. Whether it’s Quentin Tarantino classifying everything from Rio Bravo (1959) to Dazed and Confused (1993) as a “hangout movie” — which has characters who are so entertaining that you watch it mainly for the pleasure of their company — or Jonathan Demme describing his own music documentaries as “performance films” — which is when you shoot and edit a live performance in such a manner that you give the best seat in the house to somebody who can’t see a show — there’s a sense of power and pleasure in giving people a new word to describe something that you love.
I get that feeling when I describe my own favorite subgenre. I call it “what if [blank] was Paddington and did [blank].” That’s a type of film where an acclaimed actor who is typically known for serious and/or dramatic roles plays someone who is so charming and kind that they might as well be the titular bear from the Paddington franchise. That character then does something that can be as specific as achieving a distinctive goal or as general as living with a deep appreciation for the pleasures inherent in everyday life. A few examples include Patterson (2016, “what if Adam Driver was Paddington and drove a bus”), The World’s Fastest Indian (2005, “what if Anthony Hopkins was Paddington and traveled to America to break a speed record”), and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (2022, “what if Lesley Manville was Paddington and went to Paris to buy a dress”).
When viewed through this lens, Wim Wenders’s recent film Perfect Days becomes “what if Kôji Yakusho was Paddington and cleaned toilets.” Yakusho is an acclaimed Japanese actor who has shined in serious films such as Babel (2006) and 13 Assassins (2010). But in this film, he plays the kindly Hirayama (a role for which he won the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival), who cleans public toilets in Tokyo’s Shibuya neighborhood. Director Wim Wenders doesn’t construct a tight plot around him like you might find in a mystery written by Patricia Highsmith, a writer whose work Hirayama reads. Rather, Wenders and his director of photography Franz Lustig follow Hirayama’s satisfying yet solitary life as he finds joy from simple pleasures like appreciating the beauty of nature (which he occasionally photographs), listening to cassette tapes on his way to work, and reading. His appreciation for the beauty inherent in life’s smallest moments is delightful.
Kôji Yakusho as Hirayama
But what truly makes Hirayama a Paddington-esque figure isn’t his sense of joyfulness; it’s in how he treats others. Whether it’s helping a lost child reunite with his mother or giving a wayward young co-worker (Tokio Emoto as one of the most annoying characters I’ve ever seen in a movie) some money to take out his girlfriend, Hirayama consistently chooses to help others in a kind and decent way. One of the most famous quotes from Paddington 2 (2017) is “If we’re kind and polite, the world will be right.” Hirayama embodies that ethos inherent in that quote in a way that only a few other characters, one of whom is a talking bear from Peru, do.
Wenders and Yakusho also get at the melancholic underside of the “what if [blank] was Paddington and did [blank]” subgenre. The characters in all of them don’t have perfect lives in which nothing bad happens to them. Instead, they deal with issues ranging from a tragic loss of creative work (Patterson), health problems (The World’s Fastest Indian), or people trying to take advantage of their good nature (Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris). In Perfect Days, it’s a dark past which is hinted at — Wenders is more specific about how his protagonist became who he is here — when Hirayama has an awkward reunion with his wealthy sister. But what makes the characters in this subgenre so inspiring is that they don’t let it negatively influence them. Instead, they choose to be good. They decide in the face of things which would make other people to be cruel or apathetic to be generous and engaged. Former IU Cinema guest David Ehrlich, in his piece on “nicecore” movies, wrote that they show “that kindness can be a transformative force unto itself.” Hirayama, with his knack for helping others and living in the moment despite the sad yet unexplained events that have shaped him, serves as practically a living embodiment of that idea.
Hirayama enjoying the moment
Perfect Days is many things. It’s a character study, a paean to life’s minor yet delightful pleasures, and the first film not directed by a Japanese director to be selected as the Japanese entry for the Best International Film category at the Academy Awards. But it is also the perfect example of the “what if [blank] was Paddington and did [blank]” subgenre. Yakusho’s warmhearted, award-winning performance expertly represents Paddington-esque ideals of kindness and politeness, and how living by them while you pursue a goal or live a meaningful life can positively impact the people around you. In doing so, it will hopefully guide those who watch it to appreciate the small pleasures of everyday life, be kind and polite, and make the world right as they try to have some perfect days of their own.
Perfect Days will screen at IU Cinema on February 20 at 7pm and February 22 at 4pm as part of the International Art House Series.