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PORTSIDE CULTURE

PERFECT DAYS REVIEW – WIM WENDERS EXPLORES A QUIET LIFE IN TOKYO  
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Peter Bradshaw
May 25, 2023
The Guardian
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_ An absorbing slice-of-life drama led by a remarkable Kôji Yakusho
performance, Perfect Days adds a quietly soaring gem to
director/co-writer Wim Wenders' estimable filmography. _

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Wim Wenders’s new film, co-scripted by him with writer-director
Takuma Takasaki, is a bittersweet quirky-Zen character study set in
Tokyo which only comes fully to life in the final extended shot of the
hero’s face, drifting back and forth between happiness and sadness.
There are some lovely magic-hour scenes from cinematographer Franz
Lustig, shooting in the boxy “Academy” frame.

Hirayama, played by Koji Yakusho (from Shohei Imamura
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The Eel) is a middle-aged man employed as a toilet cleaner, who drives
around serenely from job to job in his van, listening to classic rock
and pop on old-school audio cassettes: Patti Smith, the Kinks and of
course, given the title, Lou Reed. At each location, he changes into a
jumpsuit and with his brushes and mop matter-of-factly gets on with
the job in hand.

With a hand-mirror, he has to check under the lavatory bowl and behind
the urinals for … well, never mind … he never finds anything
awful, and in fact the toilets are never remotely horrific. On his
lunch-hour he reads and takes photos of trees and smiles acceptingly
at everything that presents itself to his senses. He has a particular
fondness for the city’s “Skytree” tower. Hirayama has a goofy
and unreliable young assistant whose purpose is to point up
Hirayama’s tolerant maturity and calm.

But who is Hirayama? His small and ascetic apartment is filled with
books, music cassettes and boxes of his photos: he is clearly a very
intelligent and cultured man who maybe once enjoyed great social
status and has chosen this monkish existence for reasons of his own,
in retreat from personal pain maybe? Answers appear to emerge when he
peeps round the door of a certain bar, and also when his cool niece
(Arisa Nakano) comes to stay and he is then confronted by this
girl’s mother, his sister, who tells him their father’s dementia
is still a problem and seems stunned by what Hirayama does for a
living these days.

Perfect Days has a kind of ambient urban charm and Yakusho anchors the
film with his understated wisdom and presence: rightly, Wenders
doesn’t reveal too much too early about his hero and doesn’t try
to tie everything up too neatly. But I found something a little too
subdued in this film, though the evocation of Tokyo itself is very
uncliched, despite the emphasis on something that is the subject of so
many touristy jokes: the loos. Not perfect, but engaging enough.

 Perfect Days screened at the Cannes film festival
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currently screening in theaters.

* Film
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* Film Review
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* Perfect Days
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* Wim Wenders
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