In 1985, Wim Wenders released the documentary “Tokyo-Ga.” set in the eponymous city, Tokyo, and inspired by the films of Yasjiro Ozu. For all of Wenders’ good intentions and curiosity channeled in the project, it plays out like exoticism and is a bit silly in conception. With “Perfect Days,” Wenders returns to Japan, largely steering clear of these trappings by telling a simple story about a simple life.
The film’s main character, Hirayama (Koji Yakusho), is a public restroom cleaner who always finds happiness in his wonted, solitary life. In addition to the work he takes great pleasure in, we quickly get accustomed to the routineer’s day-to-day which includes the misting of his plants, reading, taking photos on his Olympus, washing at a bathhouse and eating potato salad at his usual restaurant.
If Hirayama’s routine reveals anything, apart from his modesty, it is that he is an aesthete. Beauty and simplicity become synonymous with one another — his humble life allows him to appreciate the world to the fullest and, in doing so, the world gives back. In one scene where Hirayama is lost in the foliage, he spots a budding plant on the root of a tree. With paternal lovingness, he takes out the plant and places it in a makeshift pot where it will soon join the rest of his cherished greenery.
Like the photographs he takes, Hirayama dreams in monochrome. Always present in them, because of their importance in his waking world is “komorebi,” which translates to “sunlight leaking through the trees.” Playing with montage, Wender makes these dreams feel truthful and duly artful for its star-gazer, a little alluring in its abstraction and a little frightening ergo, sometimes brief, sometimes lengthier. The dreams have an almost regenerative quality to them — even if Hirayama’s day-to-day is woefully disrupted by mishaps, he wakes up at dawn and steps out the front door with the same smile we’ve become acclimated to. It’s life-affirming to see the appreciation for a day lived and another given.
Because of this self-contentment, it is only when others present themselves in Hirayama’s life that we deviate from his peaceful cadence. Most of these interactions, while amusing in their one-sidedness (Hirayama is a man of little words) and peppered throughout to demonstrate how life isn’t consistently eventful, aren’t particularly uncontrived, nor revealing. The introduction of his niece, Niko (Arisa Nakano), delivers a much-needed interstice that Wenders and co-writer Takuma Takasaki use to look under the hood of their main man. Since these revelations arrive at the eleventh hour, a deeper understanding of Hirayama and his lifestyle is never reached. Instead, what does surface, is stapled on catharsis that’s acted well by Yakusho.
This lack of concern with deviating from routine or failure when doing the routine is not just isolated to the aforementioned scene, it extends to most of “Perfect Days.” By the end, it evokes that of a fantasy tale, single-minded in its iteration and sparsity. Wender’s jukebox, consisting of 60s and 70s hits, tackily inculcates the message of simplicity while the setting of Shibuya, with its ridiculously good-looking bathrooms and aesthetic framing, begs the question of whether the film’s thesis would work in another country.
Verdict: Truthful to its humble centerpiece, “Perfect Days” doesn’t put much on the table. Its repetition makes for a lulling experience, but one that never truly rises above that of a neatly constructed routine.
