PG | 2h 4m | Drama | 2024
No explosions. No severed limbs. No lovers’ quarrels or high-stakes showdowns. No towering robots battling kaiju (godzilla type monsters) across Tokyo’s skyline. Instead, “Perfect Days,” directed by Wim Wenders, asks us to slow down, find joy in the ordinary, and savor life’s smallest moments. It’s a quiet, meditative celebration of the hidden beauty within the rhythms of daily life.
Set against the urban sprawl of Tokyo, the film follows Hirayama (Koji Yakusho), a janitor who cleans public toilets. A solitary man, Hirayama’s work becomes a portal to peace, acceptance, and harmony. Through the film’s deliberate pacing and the repetition of Hirayama’s routines, Wenders crafts a profoundly subtle narrative that peels back layers of solitude, revealing the quiet richness of an unassuming life.
Hirayama’s existence is marked by precision and ritual. Each morning, he wakes at dawn, folds his bedding with care, brushes his teeth, shaves, and tends to his potted plants with the tenderness of a gardener tending a cherished garden. Every step seems like an act of mindfulness.
As he steps outside, a small smile touches his lips—a silent greeting to the day ahead, no matter what it might bring. He hops into his cleaning van with canned coffee in hand and drives off to work. His daily work routine involves cleaning Tokyo’s uniquely designed public restrooms: elegant, shrine-like structures. He undertakes his work with the focus of a true craftsman.
While his younger coworker Takashi (Tokio Emoto) constantly shows up late and fumbles through tasks while distracted by his phone, Hirayama moves with intention, treating each cleaning job as if it was an art.
Beauty in Details
Hirayama’s quiet joy comes not from grand experiences but from noticing the delicate beauty in ephemeral details, whether it’s light shifting through treetops, the sound of a birch broom sweeping the street at dawn, or the soft hum of the cassette player in his van.There’s something restorative, even soothing, in watching Hirayama’s routines unfold: the way he carefully selects tapes from his collection of 1960s and 1970s rock—Lou Reed, Otis Redding, and The Kinks—to accompany him through his workday or how he sits in the same park, eating lunch on the same bench, capturing the same patch of light with his analog film camera. The closest thing to romance emerges in his brief, shy moments of eye contact with a woman who shares a neighboring park bench during her midday meal.
His evening ritual is equally unhurried: dinner at the local food counter, followed by a cleansing soak at the neighborhood bathhouse, and some time spent with a well-worn paperback, purchased from a discount bookstore where the cashier can’t help but critique his choice of authors.
Yet, the film also suggests that a life so meticulously ordered carries its share of unspoken grief. Hirayama’s black-and-white dream sequences seem to conjure memories of an earlier, more complicated chapter—perhaps involving personal losses or estranged relationships. While marked by kindness and courtesy, his interactions with others reveal subtle traces of melancholy.
A visit from his teenage niece Niko (Arisa Nakano), after a falling-out with her mother, disrupts his orderly world at first. They gradually fall into a rhythm, working side by side and sharing quiet meals. Their connection soon grows into something unexpectedly tender. Wenders captures these generational exchanges with subtlety, showing how even brief encounters can leave lasting emotional imprints.
Other disruptions creep into Hirayama’s usual day-to-day routine, hinting at the fragility of his hard-won peace, when his usual patience sometimes gives way to rare flashes of frustration, reminding us how easily balance can be lost.
In “Perfect Days,” Wenders offers a reflection on the significance of small moments and simple rituals, showing how meaning accumulates in the unnoticed corners of life. Through Hirayama’s journey, we are reminded that even the most humble life, lived with intention and kindness, can carry profound spiritual richness.
Koji Yakusho’s outstanding performance conveys all of these elements with conviction. It earned him the Best Actor award in the 76th Cannes Film Festival.
“Perfect Days” is an understated masterpiece—a story of solitude, acceptance, and the enduring beauty found in repetition—that lingers in the heart long after the credits roll.
