Perfect Days
Or how every day is a perfect day.
A Tuesday evening in Berlin, one of the first autumn days after a few months of hot, humid weather. Shorts and T-shirts are out, jeans and jackets are in. A perfect day to spend an evening inside an empty kino, feel the warmth of the weeks before that were spent daydreaming under the sun. The movie – Wim Wender's Perfect Days, there were only a handful of patrons in the kino, I counted perhaps ten. There were two men in business suits and leather bags who came alone, and the usual background noise of popcorn crunching and beer bottles popping was absent, the air was filled with a deliberate silence, this was going to be an intimate screening, strangers who chose to be there in the kino to watch a movie that has been released for almost all year.
It's the kind of movie you'd come out of and say, “I am going to Tokyo to visit their famous public toilets” or “all I want in life is a cute book of poems recommended by an old bookstore owner”. It's a movie only a person who has lived long enough can make, unbothered by quick cuts or jarring music, I look back at Perfect Days as as a spiritual ceremony that I stumbled by accident, one that I was glad to be a part of. Since that viewing I started taking more pleasure in the little things of life and finding ways not to complain about things, so a passing cloud, a nice shadow or a blossoming flower become my highlight of the day, something to fall back asleep on and have a reason to wake up the next day.
Perfect Days shows that everyday can be a perfect day if you're willing to pay attention and thank you for this warmth Mr. Wenders.