Perfect Days

dir: Wim Wenders

2023

Like a fair few films that have been nominated for Best International Feature Film this year, I have a hard time figuring out what to actually describe the film as. Is it a Japanese film because the cast is Japanese and they speak in Japanese, and it’s set in Japan? Or, since it’s German director Wim Wenders’ film, does that make it a German film?

Like… when Tom Cruise was in The Last Samurai a bunch of years ago, was that a Japanese movie, since it had some Japanese people in it, and they spoke Japanese, and it was about Japanese history, even though it was in English and the lead was American and it was filmed in New Zealand? Or was it a Kiwi film? Or an American film?

This is a movie about a man who cleans public toilets in the Shibuya district. That’s it. And it was kind of commissioned by the people from the city of Tokyo who built a bunch of public toilets, and presumably wanted to show them off, which is one of the most bizarre reasons for a film to exist. As you might expect the film is not critical towards the toilets as designed or realised.

Also, because it wants to presumably show the toilets in the most positive light, they’re pretty much clean when the cleaner gets to them, which I guess makes the actor’s job a bit easier. They don’t want to gross us out, which is appreciated. I have a weak stomach when it comes to that kind of stuff, and I have a particular terror of public toilets.

None of that was triggered by this unusual flick. Kōji Yakusho is a legend of Japanese cinema. If you have watched only five contemporary Japanese movies, chances are he was in four of them. I remember him from as far back as Kamikaze Taxi way back in the day, but I’ve seen him in stacks of films since then. He can play gentle, he can play ruthless and brutal, but he’s an actor, he’s a man I could watch doing mundane things endlessly.

Which is handy, because 90 per cent of this flick is watching this man do mundane things, and it feels like it goes on forever. It is 35 minutes before he even speaks in the flick, and he speaks very little for the rest of the flick.

So we watch him get up in the morning, brush his teeth, get dressed in his coveralls, get a can of Boss coffee from a vending machine, drive to a public toilet on his list, clean the toilet, drive to another one, clean that one, look at a tree, eat a sandwich for lunch, take a photo of a tree, clean some more toilets, drive home, go to the public baths to shower and spa, get on his bike, ride to a small restaurant for dinner, ride home, read a book for a while, then fall asleep.

And then he does all these things many, many more times. For two hours.

I guess with any movie, with any story, it’s not just about what it’s about; it’s about how it’s about what it’s about, or what meaning we’re meant to derive from it all.

I don’t think many people will probably see this flick, and that of the few that do, many of them might struggle to maintain interest in the flick as it slowly rolls itself out. I am not going to pretend I was riveted or enthralled by this flick at all times. These kinds of flicks sometimes knock me the fuck out, in that, I often struggle to stay awake with leisurely paced flicks that aren’t about much of anything on the surface.

But I think I got the vibe of what the flick was going for, and I enjoyed it well enough. There is something meditative, something contemplative, something comforting about the flick. He is a humble man, and he’s okay with that, not aspiring to anything beyond what he has. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of his routines, and he is comforted by them as maybe we are to see them repeated. He is polite to any people he interacts with; his courteous and diligent manner doesn’t cloak some kind of monstrous persona. For a long while I wondered if the other shoe was going to drop, and he was going to be revealed as some kind of war criminal or serial killer, but it’s nothing like that.

Only hints are given that his life maybe was significantly different before, that this life he has now is in response to something that happened, or something he wanted to get away from. He is well-read, and perhaps has a preference for American writers and American music from the 60s and 70s. A big deal is made of the cassette tapes he has in his van, which come to play a comically significant role in the few things that happen, which should not be confused with the film having a plot.

Given the title, you could be forgiven for wondering how long it’s going to be before Lou Reed’s Perfect Day appears on the soundtrack. It doesn’t take that long. You also might get the sense that a lot of this music is perhaps more important to the director than the actual character, but I think Wim Wenders, who’s nearly 80, who’s made some pretty amazing films back in the day, has probably earned the right to do whatever the fuck he wants.

There were a few moments that felt a bit transparent, a bit inorganic, a bit of a reach that didn’t sit well with the character that Kōji Yakusho creates, but that’s okay, I’ll forgive that.

Very magnanimous of me, I’m sure you’ll agree. There are many quiet moments of beauty, of images for imagery’s sake, hints of the simple pleasure of observing the natural world, of just looking at the dappled shadows of leaves, the play of light on a wall, dreamy, half-glimpsed scenes.

Again, it’s not for everyone. It needs a patient audience, one that can tolerate small scale drama that isn’t even really drama, and that doesn’t mind when characters don’t really change or grow, or come to terms with things, or get over things.

People just are. There are reasons, but they don’t always matter. The lack of narrative is a narrative in itself. Does he hunger secretly for more? Does he wish things were different? Is he lonely? Will he find love (maybe again?) late in life? Does he wish that something chaotic would happen and change the course of his life?

Well, we’re never going to know, because that falls entirely outside the scope of this movie. Wouldn’t it make more sense that he is what he seems to be, a man content with however much or little he has, who draws comfort from the narrow confines of his ascetic life?

I enjoyed it, I would say, but then I’m probably pre-disposed to liking something like this. Maybe it’s an old man thing as well. Much as mentally I still feel like an insecure teenager, there is still some part of me that is simultaneously repulsed and entranced by his monastic life, that sees the value of a life lived in such a way, even as the lack of direct connection to people strikes me as frightening.

If the film falls apart a bit towards the end, well, that’s okay as well. Wenders and his co-writer Takuma Takasaki perform a miracle in the first place by making three-quarters of a flick out of the most bizarre of marketing pitches (celebrating the work of the architects for those seventeen goddamn public toilets), yet it achieves meaning and purpose. I wouldn’t have known how to end the movie either.

But then I’m not the guy who made Paris, Texas, or Wings of Desire, so no-one would reasonably have such expectations of me. It’s an ephemeral yet somehow powerful work, and I can’t even really explain why, other than to compliment the choices made by everyone involved, especially the lovely man playing the central character.

Sometimes less is more, and sometimes less is just less, but this was just right.

7 ways they could offer to pay me billions of yen and I would still not do that job out of 10

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“The world is made up of many worlds. Some are connected and some are not.” - Perfect Days