Perfect Days (#522)

I don’t remember seeing a Japanese film with the exception of the Godzilla variety, so I had no idea what to expect when I went to see PERFECT DAYS.  What I was treated to was a warm, poignant, wonderfully directed and performed movie about a middle aged man, Hirayama, whom we watch as he wakes up in the morning, brushes his teeth, dresses and leaves his dwelling place and, after getting a beverage in a vending machine, gets in his car snd goes to work—cleaning toilets in public restrooms all around Tokyo.  He wears coveralls with the words The Tokyo Toilet on the back, in English.  And we watch this identical scenario many times during the film.  And for me it worked, and I enjoyed virtually every minute of it.  This is the story of a gentle man, totally content in his life and enjoying interaction with some people and taking pictures of trees with his camera (not a cellphone).  He has an unscrupulous but likable co-worker who does everything to avoid working.  Hirayama doesn’t speak much which makes the events easy to follow with captions.  Interspersed with his daily routine, we begin to discover something about his past—and his future.  He is visited by a niece whom he obviously has not seen in a very long time, and he is briefly re-united with his sister and is confronted by a stranger who is the ex-husband of a woman whom Hirayama secretly longs for.  This is a fine film, without frills or false moves,  and it was one of the best films I have seen in a long time—if you’re content to watch a man wake up, brush his teeth, etc., etc.  I was a pleased to note that both critics and audiences seemed to like it as much as I did.  96% of critics and 90% of audiences gave it a thumbs up. 

P.S. I neglected to mention that Perfect Days is not really a Japanese film.  It was written and directed by an award-winning German, Wim Wenders.  Also, that Hirayama plays cassettes on his car radio, typically American vocalists, and they dominate the soundtrack.