Knowing what I knew about it -- mostly a single character, mostly little dialogue -- I thought it would clock in around 90 minutes. But when I saw that night it was 124, I quickly switched to something else.
This time it was much easier, as I had the whole living room to myself, and I was starting around 10 a.m. rather than around 10 p.m.
The reason was that the aforementioned younger son was sleeping over at his aunt's house, and still there yesterday (Sunday) morning. Yes, he claims the living room on the weekend mornings, too. Taking advantage of the novelty of him not being there, I decided to watch the rare-these-days morning movie, which could be a little bit longer if necessary, since we were having a quiet day after having a group of people over the night before. (In fact, there's something about that gathering that may inspire its own post in a day or two.)
I went into Kanopy not knowing what I would watch, but I didn't even need to start scrolling, because Perfect Days was on the landing screen, reminding me of my desire to watch it through sheer coincidence.
Perfect Days is, indeed, the perfect movie to watch during the day. I'll go into the reasons:
1) It's in Japanese. I'm not saying I can't watch subtitles at night, because that is exactly what I do most of the time. However, in the morning or afternoon, you're fresher than you would be even with an earlier evening start. It's always good to be fresh when you're doing a lot of reading and when your understanding of the film relies on that reading.
2) The actual amount of dialogue, though, is quite small, though there's more than I first thought there would be. This means I could watch it and still do the things that inevitably distract a person during the day, like people sending you messages on Facebook or having to play your turns in Lexulous. (Don't worry, Wenders lovers -- I did not do this very much, and always did it at a time when I reckoned I was likely not to miss something truly essential.)
3) Kind of expanding on point 2, this is a "hangout movie" in that it does not have stringent plotting. Some would argue -- in fact, I would be one of those -- that this only means you should pay closer attention to the small details, since it's all small details in this movie. But in a hangout movie, it's kind of nice if you can hang out, also -- you're watching and appreciating the movie perfectly well, even though you are also distracted and giving at least 17% of your attention to something else at least 17% of the time.
4) Because of the lack of dialogue, though, there isn't the immediacy of content to always hold your attention, which means if you watch it at night, you could be even more prone to the micro naps I've talked about recently.
I really liked the movie, almost loved. Maybe if I had watched it in the theater, uninterrupted, I would have actually loved it. Instead, I did succumb to a number of small breaks and the 124 minutes took more like 170 minutes to watch. Inevitably, some of the film's spell over me was broken in this situation, where others might walk through the room at any point, rather than just the beginning like my wife might do at night, before she settles in for her own evening's entertainment. Though they, too, were enjoying a quiet day.
Still, you can't see every movie you want to see in the cinema, in the cinema, and any viewing outside of that is going to be compromised in some way. I mean, I can't remember the last time I watched any movie at home and didn't pause it once. If the option is there, you take it.
However, I do manage to love movies I don't see in the cinema each year, so pausing the movie itself is not fatal to your potential love for it.
And for any number of reasons, the daytime viewing may be the perfect way to do that ... while also having its inevitable imperfections.
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