Director Wim Wenders’ latest film, “PERFECT DAYS,” is set to be released on December 22nd (Friday). Set in Tokyo, the film portrays the daily life of a janitor, and it has already garnered high acclaim, with lead actor Koji Yakusho receiving the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival.
Music director and critic Yuji Shibasaki, who has long held a deep appreciation for the use of music in Wenders’ works, delves into the charm of the film in this installment of the series “The Art of Selection: Crafting Films through Music,” the 9th edition.
*Note: This article contains descriptions related to the content of the film. Please be aware of this before proceeding.
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Music in Wim Wenders’ Films
Until a certain point in my life, the act of watching a Wim Wenders film had a significant meaning for me as an experience that included “listening to the gems of music that Wim Wenders selected and orchestrated. The rock and pop masterpieces scattered throughout his early films, such as “The Goalkeeper’s Fears,” “Alice in the City,” and “An American Friend,” served as the best introduction to the actual songs and artists used in the films, and also demonstrated how creative the existing music could be for the films. It was also a vivid reminder of the creative potential of existing music for film. The experience of immersing myself in the scores that great musicians such as Jürgen Knepper and Ry Cooder contributed to his films was also deeply moving, something I don’t often get from the work of other directors. In retrospect, one of the main reasons I am writing this series as a person who loves music and film equally is that I was fascinated by the brilliance of his films and the music that resonated within them.
His forthcoming new film, PERFECT DAYS, is a brilliant reintroduction to Wenders’s sound directorial genius, which I have somewhat forgotten of late. In fact, if I may be so bold as to say so, this film is a clear standout in his recent filmography, in which it must be said that he has continued to make films that are somehow awkward, and from a certain point of view, it is somewhat of a “return to his roots.
