Every day is the same. Hirayama (KÅji Yakusho), a taciturn man in his 60s, wakes in his spartan apartment to the reluctant grey light of pre-dawn. He pulls on his overalls, takes a can of coffee from a street vending machine and sets out in his modest little van to start work, diligently cleaning the public toilets of Tokyo. Itâs a solitary life. Hirayama can go days saying no more than a few cursory words. If members of the public notice him, they largely view him as an inconvenience. But mostly they donât even see him. It should be the most soul-crushingly bleak film ever made â a Groundhog Day grind with added despair and urinal cakes. But Wim Wendersâs zen meditation on beauty, fulfilment and simplicity is quite the opposite: itâs an achingly lovely and unexpectedly life-affirming picture. It all depends â and this is central to the filmâs gently profound message â on your way of looking at things. Hirayama looks at the world with his eyes, but sees with his heart.
There is a Japanese word, âkomorebiâ, which was the original title of the film. Literally translated, it means âsunlight leaking through treesâ, but thereâs more to it than that. It speaks of a profound connection with nature, and the necessity to pause, to take the time to absorb and appreciate the perfection of tiny, seemingly insignificant details. Hirayama has not only grasped all of this, he has made it the keystone of his essence. He sees all things, all people, as equally important, with an equal capacity for transcendence. While other pedestrians ignore the vagrant who camps in a park, Hirayama watches in wonder as the man moves in his own dance of self-expression. And the toilets themselves, although humble in purpose, are architectural gems.
Hirayamaâs ascetic existence is stripped back to basics: music, played on cassette tapes collected, we assume, in his long-ago youth; secondhand books bought from the budget section of the local bookstore; a point-and-shoot film camera with which he captures the things that please him; the interplay between the sky and the trees. Trees, it seems, have a particular significance for Hirayama, something that he pays back by carefully rescuing fragile Japanese maple seedlings in order to nurture them in his apartment.
That this way of living lightly in the world seems as spiritually rewarding as it does is largely thanks to Yakushoâs remarkable performance. The actor, whose previous films include Memoirs of a Geisha, Eureka and Babel, can convey an extraordinarily rich interior life, almost entirely without leaning on dialogue.
Equally important in our understanding of Hirayamaâs journey through the world is the choice of music. He listens to 60s and 70s American and British rock â the Velvet Underground, the Kinks, Otis Redding, Patti Smith â and Japanese folk from the same period. The song choices â in particular the Lou Reed track that gives the film its title and Nina Simoneâs Feeling Good â are windows into his soul at any given moment. Hirayama has found harmony, although there are suggestions of a previous, more privileged life, in which this was not the case. This sense of peace and equanimity is a rare thing in the central character of a film â cinema, after all, thrives on conflict and discord. They donât call it drama for nothing.
Perfect Days is, by no small margin, Wendersâs most successful narrative film in a long time. With its gentle rhythms, leisurely pacing and quiet profundity, this Tokyo toilet story has an obvious debt to the work of YasujirÅ Ozu. But it also put me in mind of Federico Veirojâs slow cinema gem A Useful Life, and of Wendersâs own masterpiece Wings of Desire. Hirayama might not be an angel, but thereâs something elevated about his quiet joy in the world around him.
Itâs possible that Perfect Days â Oscar-nominated for best international feature â is as much a manifesto as it is a movie â an argument in favour of an alternative way of being. Perfection, the film argues, is found in a pared-down approach to the world and a rejection of the thirst for new sensations and novelty that drives so much of society. Itâs no accident that Hirayama favours analogue technology over digital â the cassette tapes, the film camera. The digital onslaught, with its noise and distractions, is in direct opposition to the spiritual peace and purity that he works towards each day. Perhaps, in its polite and unassuming way, the film advocates not just a new way of looking, but also a new way of living.