“Perfect Days” Through the Eyes of a Tokyo Toilet Cleaner — Film Review
Brace yourself for some slow pace in this ode to the high-tech world of Tokyo’s public restrooms.
Last weekend I went to see “Perfect Days”, a 2023 film release directed by a German filmmaker, playwright, author, and photographer Wim Wenders, created from a script co-written by Wenders and Japanese author Takuma Takasaki. Co-produced by Japan and Germany, the film competed at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and won The Prize of the Ecumenical Jury (French: Prix du Jury Œcuménique), “an independent film award for feature-length films shown at major international film festivals since 1973”, as stated by Wikipedia.
The film also received Best Actor Award won by the Japanese actor Kōji Yakusho for the role of the main character Hirayama — a man leading a seemingly nondescript life cleaning Tokyo toilets for a living.
The film’s synopsis and the fact it has received several awards got me intrigued enough to go watch the movie.
Leave your fast-paced expectations at the door.
First things first, the film is an antithesis to the contemporary Western culture haunted by the immediacy of achievement — materialistic and otherwise. For the first twenty-five minutes or so into the picture, I kept catching myself feeling as if being trapped in the “Groundhog Day” story, my mind refusing to slow down to be in sync with the movie’s pace. It felt like watching repetitively a “Reality TV” of sorts, following every step of the TV personality in question — the main character waking up every morning to the same routine of thoroughly brushing his teeth, trimming his moustache, dressing himself in the cleaner’s uniform, tending to his miniature tree garden, getting cold-brew coffee from the vending machine by the building he lives in, getting in the car, and driving to work.
During his commute every morning, Hirayama listens to the 1960s and 1970s classic rock on the old cassette tapes, a nostalgic nod to his younger years. Whilst he is driving, the viewers get a good glimpse into the urban life of Tokyo and its architecture, accompanied by “The Velvet Underground” and other famous avant-garde 1970s bands he listens to while in his car.
Maybe it was that ‘slow traveling across Tokyo to the tunes of classic American rock’ theme that had a tranquilizing effect on me and caused my somewhat sceptical mood and perception of things happening on the screen to shift. As I kept watching, it was as if my mind was becoming more fluid, and the societally pre-conceived notions and expectations of a boxed construct of a “cliché narrative” gradually escaping my mind. You sort of let your whole self slow down, and take it all in the way it is, without any expectations forced by society — becoming the character, if you will, and seeing, and feeling, the life through his eyes and his senses, that are in itself, a “narrative”.
“The world is made up of many worlds”
Hirayama spends his days cleaning toilets around Tokyo — every time the process is shown meticulously (yes, you get to witness the famous high-tech world of Japan in some great detail in the form of the city’s public restrooms).
During lunchtime he goes to the nearby park to eat his lunch and take long glances at the tree tops, swaying slowly in the wind. Then he takes the old Olympus camera out of his uniform pocket and captures the trees lit by the sun. Later he brings the film rolls to the local camera shop to get developed, and the photos printed. At home he looks at the photos ever so slowly, and places them in the boxes, dated in chronological order. Many of the images might seem identical to the everyday hasty eye, but to him it is his diary that seems to only prove his existential contentment.
In the evening he reads books. Lots of books he finds at second-hand shops.
Scarce convention to hold on to, but valuable enough to do so.
Throughout the film, the audience gets a few rare moments of a more typically developing storyline, including the main character’s niece appearing at his doorstep out of the blue. He lets her stay at his place for a few days (or a few weeks… time seems to travel beyond convention in this film). Hirayama lets his niece take his platform bed and he himself sleeps on the floor of a very crammed closet in his apartment.
They spend some time bicycling around the city — her, talking and asking him questions about their family, and him mainly listening to her in silence, mostly reacting with his facial expressions (which is his overall preferred way of communicating to the world, for that matter). Then, his sister, and the girl’s mother, comes to pick her up one evening — luxury sedan car and all, telling of a very different life. An emotional, if brief, conversation takes place between them followed by a teary embrace and a fairwell.
“The House of the Rising Sun”
The culmination of this film to me is, perhaps, the scene when the main character enters an eatery somewhere in Tokyo and strikes a conversation with the hostess of the place. They seem to know one another. After a brief exchange, she then proceeds to sing in Japanese “The House of the Rising Sun”, a storied blues rock ballad. She sings it beautifully and very soulfully, evoking a deep emotion. Considering the lyrics of the song that tells a story of a brothel, presumably in New Orleans, that was named La Sol Levant (“Rising Sun” in French, after the madam that ran it) and the trials and tribulations of people associated with it, this moment in the “Perfect Days” seems to bear a lot of hidden meaning.
Contemplative Cinematography
The tradition of slow-paced or contemplative film isn’t new. Andrey Tarkovsky, Jim Jarmusch, Bela Tarr and a number of other contemporaries all explored the concept of the passage of time, making the viewers question their perception of it by creating intentionally slow scenes. Experimental cinema is not for everyone. The viewer has to have an open mind in order to let go of preconceived notions. This film, while not completely innovative, addresses these topics and masterfully excels at making the viewer step outside the ‘box’ and view the world from a different angle. Even if this cinematic style isn’t your ‘cup of tea’, it is definitely worth trying to immerse yourself into it. You might discover something. Just have the patience.
