Perfect days is a slice of life genre of movie, which is directed by my favorite movie director called Wim Wenders. It is a new movie directed in 2024. The topic of the movie is: enjoy your daily life, enjoy the people you meet, and value the thoughts and inspirations. There is no audience in your life.

Perfect days is more like the daily vlog of the main character called Hirayama. The plot is not have very challenging changes, but you can get lots of deeply feelings after watching the movie. The life of Hirayama is very normal. He is a public toilet cleaner, and he usually gets up at five o’clock in the morning, eat lunch in the same park, use his film camera to record the tree, and go to the same restaurant. He meet lots of people in his story, include his niece, the girl in the park, the people in the restaurant, and lots of strangers.

I really love a dialogue between he and his niece: The next time is the next time, but now is now. I believe that we should enjoy every moments in our life, even some small things. We can expect but we do not need to live in the future, because no one in the world know what will happen in the future.

Though the movie’s name is perfect days, but the directer do not want tell us the life is perfect. Our life have lots of good things and bad things, and we should face them. This “perfect” in the title do not means our life is perfect and do not have any pains. It means that though our life have lots of pity, but we still love to live, to experience, to try.

The movie Perfect days is like a gift in my life. It cures me when I feel expression, and let me think about life, our lifestyle, and our mind.

by Clara Xu

A one and a two is a masterpiece Chinese art realism drama which is directed by Edward Yang in 2000. It is a movie talks about the meaning of life and death, standing for the life style and people’s mind in 2000s.

This movie use a special way to demonstrate what is life: they use a very normal family in Taipei and describe all family members in the movie, which inspire people to thinking about their whole life. A one and a two do not have dramatic twists in plot design, and it is more like a normal people’s diary about life, family, death, and the way we use to see the world. The characters in the movie are also vivid, NJ is a middle age man who are facing challenges in his work and feel confused; Minmin is the wife of NJ who feel stress in her life and live in the mountain, and she is a classic representative of classic middle age woman; Tingting is a high school student who is in adolescence, and she feels sad about her grandma’s gone; Yangyang is Minmin’s little brother, my favorite character in the movie, he used film camera and took people’s back because he said people cannot see their back, so he took the photos and showed them.

A one and a two clearly reflects the social conditions of 2000s age. Everyone in different age, gender, and conditions have different thinking about life. It is so realistic that is strikes a chord with viewers. I believe audiences of all ages gain distinct thoughts and feelings, each resonating with the film differently.

Furthermore, the cinema language in this movie serves as its indispensable soul. The movie had an aged, DV-like texture. The images are not sharp, yet they deliver a strong sense of authenticity. The camera work is excellent in the movie, the photographer used lots of techniques, such as pan, zoom in tilt, tracking, handheld shot and so on.

The title of the movie is A one and a two, I believe that there are lots of meaning of that. Literally, a one and a two means one by one, and every single person. The film unfolds life stages one after another: new baby, childhood, adolescence, middle age, and death. All intricate worldly troubles boil down to the simplicity of life itself.

A good movie is a good lesson. The world which is full of love, life, and our minds, revolves around us. It teaches me how to face my left life and those challenges in different ages. As A One And A Two said “ I got to live my youth again. I thought things would turn out differently, yet nothing really changed. Suddenly I realize, there is no point living life all over again. This is really an outstanding film that prompts viewers to reflect on what kind of life to live and how to love the world as well as themselves.

by Clara Xu