Lu Xun once said: I think that as long as I earn living expenses by working, I am not angry with accidents, and I have a little spare time to play by myself, I can be considered happy.
I checked, this is really what Lu Xun said.
It's just that I didn't expect that this new Cannes award-winning film actually interpreted this sentence seriously from the title to the content:
"Perfect Day"
Tokyo, Japan.
Hirayama is a solitary dweller.
Before dawn, the sound of the sanitation worker sweeping the road outside the window will sound on time, waking up the sleeping Pingshan.
He knew it was time to get up.
Brush your teeth, wash your face, shave, water your plants, change into overalls, count keys, change, watches at the door, put them in your pockets...
Go out, take a breath of fresh air with a sense of ceremony, and look up at the faint sky with a smile.
Buy coffee at the vending machine in front of your house, start the car, and start playing rock music from the seventies and eighties...
Finally, arrive at your destination: a public toilet in Shibuya.
You read that right, Hirayama's identity is, a toilet cleaner.
Picking up garbage, scrubbing toilets, washstands, mopping floors... After cleaning one room, drive to the next one.
There's no lounge, and there's not much time to rest, so I'm just nibbling on a sandwich on a park bench at noon.
After work, go to the public bath to take a shower, and then go to the tavern for a drink...
Read a book before going to bed at night, see eyelids fighting, take off your glasses, turn off the lights and go to bed.
This is the first half hour of the movie, and you may not imagine that such a daily slice of life will be repeated for more than an hour afterward.
Hirayama doesn't like to talk, has a gentle temperament, doesn't have many lines throughout the movie, and there are no dramatic conflicts...
Wake up, go out, work, take a bath, eat, sleep, dream... Every day seems a little different, but it doesn't seem to be any different.
And I think that's the most fascinating thing about movies.
Short video users who are used to watching a few seconds will be reversed, I'm afraid they can't stand it for a minute, right?
The director seems to be deliberately engaging in this confrontation, he just wants to create such an atmosphere and immerse the audience in Hirayama's life.
Life in Hirayama looks ordinary, but it has its own fun.
For example, if someone is in a hurry to go to the toilet while cleaning, Hirayama will quickly come out and let the other person use it first.
While waiting outside the door, he would look at the leaves swaying in the wind, and he would admire the shadows of the leaves on the wall...
During a lunch break, he would pick up his camera and take pictures of the beautiful scenery.
On holidays, he goes to the photo shop to develop the photos, and then selects, admires, and organizes them into a book.
Every month of the year, different scenery is carefully arranged and collected.
For example, he would notice a lovely seedling under a large tree, which he carefully dug up, transplanted it to the balcony of his home, and tended to it carefully.
He also likes to read, and every week he visits second-hand bookstores, where he can buy a copy for 100 yen (about 5 yuan) for a few nights.
It is worth mentioning that in this Internet era, Hirayama does not even have smartphones and does not use computers.
I don't know if it's because of this, he is not easily distracted when doing things, whether it is work or life, it seems to have his own rhythm, unhurried, and methodical.
He likes music, but he listens to cassettes...
These cassettes, in the eyes of the younger generations, are antiques that can be sold at a good price, and if you sell a few plates, you can exchange them for a good mobile phone.
But Hirayama said that he would not sell anything, not so much that he was obsessed with the sound of tapes, but that he was unwilling to change his Xi.
The Japanese film "Perfect Day" was screened in the main competition unit of the Cannes Film Festival, and currently has a Douban score of 7.9.
The 67-year-old Hiroshi Yakusho won the Cannes Best Actor with this film.
In order to play an ordinary toilet cleaner, the office practiced Xi to clean different toilets every day, so that by the end of filming, he was already an expert in this area, and he laughed: I guess the cleaning company will want to recruit me.
However, the film still caused a lot of controversy.
Some people criticize: cruel and unconscious films, the director is glorifying suffering, he is not qualified to look at the life of a cleaner and compare it to a "perfect day".
But there are also those who retort: Why can't labor sing the praises? Does the working class not even have the right to discover the beauty of a flower, and can only roar to satisfy your curiosity and earn your tears?
I understand the respective positions of the opposing sides, but I would like to say that although the film does not sharply highlight the sorrow of the cleaners and is not "fighting" enough, it also does not shy away from their difficulties, such as being disgusted by others, such as meager income.
It's just that these are not the focus of the film's narrative.
The movie does not praise the glory of labor and professional dedication, it is presenting a possibility of life: even if you live at the bottom, you deserve to have poetry and distance.
And there are actually a lot of such stories around us.
Mr. Shen, a 54-year-old worker's uncle in Rizhao, Shandong Province, used shovels, hammers and other construction tools as "pens" between work, and used cement as ink to practice Xi calligraphy on the concrete floor of the construction site.
He said that when he was a child, he practiced Xi Xiaokai with his father, and when he was tired on the construction site, he was in a good mood as soon as he wrote with a hammer.
This video stunned netizens: It turns out that I can't write well because of the pen...
In Beijing, Wang Liuyun, a 57-year-old cleaning aunt, is responsible for cleaning the corridors and toilets of office buildings during the day.
In the evening, she transforms into a painter and paints in the three-square-meter storage room next to the toilet.
This small space is a testament to her hard work and perseverance, as well as the breadth and freedom of her heart.
She said: Life is in front of you, and the distance is in the pen.
In 2018, 49-year-old Wang Jibing wore a blue vest and became the oldest "takeaway brother" in the site.
Today, he has traveled 150,000 kilometers to deliver food, which is equivalent to nearly four laps along the equator.
At the hardest time of his life, writing poetry became the outlet and salvation of his spiritual life.
He writes poems in cigarette boxes and old newspapers, and when he is waiting for the elevator or the red light when he is waiting for takeaways, he saves his words and phrases in recordings, and then finds time to organize them.
These 4,000 poems that have struggled in the gap between lives have been collected and published this year: "People in a Hurry" and "I Am Clumsy in Love with the World".
He has a poem that says: I have been fighting against life, but those whose hearts are full of light, do not be afraid of any night road.
We all know that life at the bottom is difficult, difficult, and even makes people often wonder what is the meaning of living.
But if you look at their stories, you will be convinced: resisting the ordinary is meaning.
In "Perfect Days", Hirayama presents us with a low-desire life, alone, without anything, living in a simple house, and without much socialization...
But he lived a very rich and fulfilling life: he had a heart to discover beauty anytime and anywhere, always released kindness to strangers, and devoted all his time to hobbies.
In this day and age, we seem to need such a spirit in particular.
In the past forty years of rapid development, it seems that everyone is running desperately, not daring to relax for a second...
But now, young people are more willing to say "lie flat", "touch the fish" and "hold on", and the uncertainty of the future makes people anxious, tired, and confused, and it seems that everyone needs to rethink what they want to live for.
And more people realize that the small beauty in life and the happiness brought by hobbies are enough to offset the hard work of a day.
Russell said: The best way to conquer the years is to gradually expand your interests and become more detached, until the wall of self-pity is peeled off little by little, and your life is more and more integrated into all things in the universe.
Perhaps, there is no need to be obsessed with worldly success, ordinary but trivial flashes of brilliance are enough to heal and be called "perfect".