Final Rating: 5/5
As I’m writing this review over the (American) Thanksgiving holiday while I visit my childhood home in Northeast Florida, the perennial question of how long my wife and I plan to stay in New York has come up more than once. While I obviously can’t claim to be a New Yorker born and raised, I’d like to think I have some claim to the city after living nearly a decade in Manhattan continuously since graduating college (even staying during the height of the pandemic when many people took advantage of working remotely to leave, even temporarily). And while the younger me of my 20’s was enamored by the chaotic energy of this city that never sleeps, the current me of my 30’s has found what I truly love in the city are the contrasting moments of zen found in daily routine against that backdrop of constant motion.
Ironically, one of the best films I’ve seen that captures this notion isn’t depicting New York, but rather modern day Tokyo, in Wim Wender’s recent Japanese/German co-production (and Japanese submission for Best International Feature at the Oscars this year), Perfect Days. Starring veteran actor Koji Yakusho as toilet cleaner Hirayama (for which he won the Cannes award for Best Actor), we are eased into the slice of life adventures of this blue collar laborer. How he wakes before dawn to the sound of someone sweeping the streets near his one bedroom, no bathroom apartment on the outskirts of city. How he goes through his morning routine, washing up and getting dressed in his uniform before he drives to his daily assignment of urban toilets to clean, alongside his much more noisy younger coworker Takashi (Tokio Emoto). After he finishes up his shift after lunch, he goes to the local public bath to wash up before biking to an izakaya within a subway station, he is greeted as one of the regulars, before heading to sleep. Only to repeat this day after day after day, with a day off perhaps to do his laundry and go drinking at a small bar run by a friend.
In text, that sounds more like a dystopian late-stage capitalist nightmare than a meditation of finding joy in your everyday life. But while our productivity focused minds may zone in on the schedule of events and appointments that would fill our mental Google Calendars, Wenders and Cinematographer Franz Lustig take care to focus on the small things you can’t schedule. How Hirayama opens his door each morning and breathes in the crisp morning air before selecting an audiocassette of 70’s and 80’s folk, rock and soul music for his drive into work. During his lunch break, he takes out a small film camera to try and photograph how the sunlight falls through the leaves of the park he frequents. How the bright colors of the clothes of children playing nearby reflect off the shiny facades of the public toilets he cleans. How he takes care to water his clippings of plants he keeps under a grow light in a room that takes up half his apartment, or how each week he picks a different novel to read before bed, ranging from William Faulkner to Patricia Highsmith. These impressions of the small moments in his life that spark joy within him coalesce in these abstract black and white dream sequences that bookend each day – nothing specific stands out, yet you get flashes of these experiences that have seeped into his subconscious and clearly have an impact on him.
Adding to the vibe of his film is the aforementioned soundtrack of about half a dozen American songs from the 70’s and 80’s, that while some may be a bit on the nose (Perfect Day by Lou Reed, or Feeling Good by Nina Simone for example), really help characterize what kind of person Hirayama is. Similarly, Wender’s highlighting of the stunning architecture of public toilets within Japan and the variety therein adds an element of beauty that contrasts the ostensibly “dirty” job Hirayama has that often many citizens would overlook. However, Hirayama takes pride in his work in the same Japanese craftsman way Jiro would in making his sushi, or Miyazaki his anime, or Masamune his swords. All despite his coworker’s protestations that he works too hard cleaning something that will just get dirty again.
While this isn’t necessarily a critique of this film, this somewhat documentarian approach really doesn’t leave much space for a traditional narrative structure. We do get glimpses into some sort of conflict through Hirayama’s interactions with other characters – his loudmouthed co-worker who pines for the trendy bar girl Aya and who has befriended a local boy; his runaway niece who stays with him (and whose eventual return to her mother, his sister, reveals some unspoken backstory for our protagonist); the divorced bar proprietress friend whom he spends his weekend afternoons drinking with. Perhaps most striking is an unknown individual with whom he plays remote tic-tac-toe with via a hidden piece of paper in one of his toilets. At times it goes a bit far – for example I had to research what exactly the short story The Terrapin was about to understand its reference in the narrative – but ultimately these half explained narratives and character plot lines reflect the appeal of living in a bustling metropolis like Tokyo or New York that I love.
While we may be the character of our own story, everyone around us has their own narratives to play out, and we serve as background characters for them. And when our lives intersect, it can show you a side or perspective of humanity you might have never considered. What you may take for granted or not even give a second thought to may be of great importance to the person next to you on the subway. And for me, finding that joy in life in the way you want to live it makes for a truly perfect day.
Perfect Days was seen at the Angelika FIlm Center during its one week engagement in NYC.
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