At this year's Oscars, amid a sea of Barbie feminism dressed in bubblegum pink and Cillian Murphy's architectural bone structure, the two films I was gunning for were Perfect Days, written by Wim Wenders and Takuma Takasakiabout, and Celine Song’s Past Lives, both exploring roads not taken, regret and what it means to choose to live on your own terms.
Perfect Days tells the story of Hirayama, a toilet cleaner in Tokyo who's found peace and joy in the smaller, the miniscule even, moments of a very routine life. At the midpoint in the film it becomes clear he might have chosen a very different, and potentially much easier, life for himself.
Past Lives is a critically acclaimed romantic drama about a Korean woman who immigrated to America in her teens being reunited with her childhood sweetheart from Seoul. It examines with perfect subtlety all the things that we choose for ourselves and also the seismic things that are decided for us by circumstance and fate.
Perfect Days tells the story of Hirayama (Image: FREE)
I was captivated by these films for many reasons but most of all because lately I've been thinking about the decisions I've taken too, those sliding doors moments in our lives when our future tilts on an axis. The day that I sold my second novel and wrote my resignation email for my 9-5 office job, even though the first instalment of my book........