My review for In Review Online:
When moviegoers go to the movies, they typically do so with certain expectations: to be entertained, to feel something, to unwind from reality and escape into fantasy, to derive, in short, some utility from the experience greater than that if they had not. Before we criticize this observation as a fool’s errand in attempting to rationalize artistic jouissance, or lament its lack of inclusivity (there are those, after all, who will visit their local…
Where to start with this film? To those previously unacquainted with Zack Snyder's works (like myself, having somehow avoided even his superhero ones), a foreboding mythos looms over them like an irresistible spectre, enticing and repelling in equal captivating measure. Likewise, one tends to find it difficult to separate, or at least distinguish between, the strands of ironic critique and sincere commentary that prove so characteristic of his dialectical engagement. It's terrifyingly problematic for the uninitiated viewer suddenly thrust into…
It pains me to say that Perfect Days is empty tearjerker sentimentalism. Ozu without Ozu, Jarmusch without Jarmusch, more Kurosawa than Kurosawa; the clichés of melodrama and humanism come in snivelling full force onto the canvas, barely fitting under a thin veil of naturalism that controls more than it contemplates. If you’re depressed and look to this for life-changing inspiration, sure I guess. The rest of us, I suspect, should glean from this little more than the cutesy tranquilising momentum that…
D’Angelo’s take says it all, but a quick word: retrospection is always more forgiving towards prescience.
“Most people live for the moment, and you live for eternity.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m afraid I might believe it.”
