In his documentary ‘Tokyo-Ga’ (1985), the German Wim Wenders used the Japanese capital in search of the locations of Yasujiro Ozu’s films; in the fiction with which he aspires to win the Palme d’Or this year, four decades after winning the award thanks to ‘Paris, Texas’ (1984), rediscover the city through its public toilets, which have ultra-modern designs and – to no one’s surprise – are cleaner than a whistle.
Precisely, the protagonist of ‘Perfect Days’ earns his living conscientiously taking care of the hygiene of these toilets. He is a man with a simple life, who seems to delight in his solitude and his routines – getting up and tidying up his room, watering his plants, spending the day driving around the city in a van while listening to seventies rock, always eating at the same restaurant, reading before lie down, sleep, dream-; He gives the feeling of being happy, at least until an unexpected encounter makes us understand that his methodical and Spartan life serves as a refuge from a traumatic family memory.
As you contemplate your day to day, Wenders uses those habits to sketch out a praise of analog versus digital. -cassette tapes in front of Spotify, second-hand books in front of the ‘kindle’, photographic reels in front of pixels- and a reflection on the importance of closing wounds before it is too late, but ‘Perfect Days’ above all tries to defend the importance of fighting adversity with optimismbite the bullet and enjoy small pleasures like the one that Wenders probably aspires to provide the viewer with her. It is such a small film that even such a discreet lens is probably too big for it. But that, considering that in recent years Wenders has directed such disastrous titles as ‘Palermo Shooting’ (2008), ‘Everything will be fine’ (2015) and ‘Immersion’ (2017), does not prevent it from being the best fiction signed by the German in two decades.
Breillat and desire
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‘Remake’ from the Danish film ‘Queen of Hearts’ (2019), the new film by Catherine Breillat explores what has undoubtedly been the main issue of the French woman throughout her filmography: female sexual desire. It stars a successful lawyer who seems to completely lose her senses when the troubled teenage son of her wealthy husband moves into the family mansion; although she tries -vaguely-, she is unable to resist the boy’s beauty and overwhelming sexual energy -attributes that her husband lacks-, and the passion between them is unleashed.
Inevitably, or perhaps not, when the time comes, the woman will have to decide between paying attention to her underbelly or maintaining the privileges that make her life so comfortable.. While contemplating the process, the film is just as satisfying as a domestic intrigue, a portrait of both the damage that human beings are willing to cause and the humiliations that they accept to endure for money and to demand the freedom of women -and of the female characters. – to think with the genitalia as much as the opposite sex does.