‘Perfect Days’ Review: Wim Wenders’ Quiet Drama Finds a Hero Who Cleans Toilets
thewrap.comCannes Film Festival on Thursday, he is a modest toilet cleaner – and this gentle, philosophical character study is all the more mesmeric for it.The 77-year-old director’s fictional work has been overshadowed by his documentaries lately, but his new film, a fictional work which sometimes resembles a documentary, is a significant return to form for the director who won the Palme d’Or in 1984 for “Paris, Texas.” It begins by introducing us to the middle-aged Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) as he wakes up alone in his small flat.
Once he’s cleaned his teeth, trimmed his moustache and spray-misted his plants – yes, no detail is spared – he puts on a boilersuit with “The Tokyo Toilet” printed on the back, buys a can of coffee from the machine by his building, and drives his blue van through the city’s forest of skyscrapers to the first of several public toilets he is due to clean.He treats every one of these as if it’s a royal throne, even using a small mirror – the kind that’s usually seen in bomb-disposal thrillers – to check for dirt that might be hidden from view.
A colleague tells him to relax because “it gets dirty again, anyway,” but Hirayama might as well be a monk or a samurai. He does everything with quiet diligence, including, we later learn, his house-cleaning, his laundry and his visits to a bathhouse.
Mundane as it all is, Wenders, ever the documentarian, is fascinated by every tiny aspect of Hirayami’s existence, and the film’s cinematography, editing and acting have the same quiet diligence.Nor is there anything patronizing or condescending about it.
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