Perfect Days

As the film Perfect Days begins, the morning light awakens a man named Hirayama, who sits quietly on his sleeping mat for a while before rolling it up, then brushes his teeth and shaves in his tiny bathroom, finally emerging from his home, smiling as he looks up at the sky. After getting a coffee from a vending machine in the courtyard, he gets into his van, chooses the cassette tapes he will listen to that day, and goes to work, cleaning a series of public toilets in Tokyo. As the film proceeds, we watch him go through this very same routine, day after day.

Here’s an idea that you’d think would never work: a drama about the daily life of a man who cleans toilets. But German filmmaker Wim Wenders, who directed and co-wrote the picture with producer Takuma Takasaki, pulls off a little miracle in Perfect Days. The gentle repetition of Hirayama’s routine (and of course not every day is exactly the same) manifests his humility and attention to each moment. The carefully paced editing keeps us gently in the present. Yet some things do happen. A young eccentric co-worker doesn’t share Hirayama’s work ethic—he’s more interested in social media and hitting on a young woman working at a bar. One day, he persuades Hirayama to let him use the van to pick up the woman. Nothing terrible happens. It’s not that kind of movie.

Later, Hirayama’s teenage niece shows up unexpectedly, having run away from her controlling mother. They share some nice moments together, until the mother, his adult sister, arrives in a limousine to retrieve her daughter, and in the process we learn a little more about the past of our main character.

The main reason all this works is that Hirayama is played by the great actor Kōji Yakusho. Americans might remember him from Tampopo, Shall We Dance, or Babel, all films over a decade old.  He’s 68 now, but still an incredibly vibrant actor and handsome man.  For most of the movie, he doesn’t even talk. His body language and facial expressions are enough. When he finally does say things, thoughtfulness and sensitivity are evident, but also pain and sorrow.

The toilets Hirayama cleans have some trash and dirt in them, but audiences will immediately note that you don’t see the kinds of disasters common in public restrooms in the States. I don’t know if this is meant to be culturally accurate or significant. I do know that Wenders was inspired by the Tokyo Toilet Project, a redesign of 17 facilities in the upscale Shibuya neighborhood. Authorities asked him if he would be willing to do a series of short documentaries about the project. He declined, instead deciding to do this fictional treatment.

Sometimes Wenders swerves close to whimsy, but always pulls back in time through the repeated motifs and the feelings evoked from the gentle rhythms of attention. Hirayama’s choice of songs is for the most part all too familiar—but nothing can spoil the film’s overall effect of profound simplicity and beauty.

Perfect Days takes the radical position that a simple working life can be a blissful one, while at the same time touching our hearts with loneliness. A perfect day is any day you feel free.