Well ... C code may be compiled to a machine language understood by the processor, but it's still just as dependent on it's run-time environment as Perl code is. Sometimes the runtime is linked into the program, but most of the time it's an external dynamicaly loaded library.

And of course very few programs, no matter in what langauge, can get by without the help from the OS.

Plus some processors do not really implement their machine language in the wires and transistors, but instead the ops are implemented in another, more low-level language. It's just that it's built into the processor and you are not allowed to use the microinstructions directly.