Perfect Days is a 2023 drama film directed by Wim Wenders, from a script written by Wenders and Takuma Takasaki.[3] A co-production between Japan and Germany, the film combines four short stories and stars Kōji Yakusho in the role of a toilet cleaner.[4]
The film competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered on 25 May and won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the Best Actor Award for Kōji Yakusho. It was nominated for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards, becoming the first film not directed by a Japanese filmmaker to be nominated as the Japanese entry.[5]
Plot[edit]
Hirayama works as a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo. He repeats his structured, ritualized life every day starting at dawn. He dedicates his free time to his passion for music, which he listens to in his van to and from work, and to his books, which he reads every night before going to sleep. His dreams are shown in flickery impressionistic sequences at the end of every day.
Hirayama is also very fond of trees, and spends time gardening and photographing them. He has a sandwich every day in the shade under trees in a park, and takes photos of their branches and leaves. His pride in his work is apparent by its thoroughness and precision.
Hirayama's young assistant Takashi is often late, loud and not as thorough. One day, a young woman named Aya stops by the public toilet Takashi is cleaning so he hurries to finish. He tries to leave with Aya but his motorbike won't start, so he convinces Hirayama to let him use his van. When Aya says Takashi can stay with her as she works at a girls bar, he complains loudly that he's broke. Unbeknownst to Aya, Takashi slips Hirayama's Patti Smith tape into her purse. He talks Hirayama into going into a shop to get some of his cassettes appraised. When Takashi finds out how valuable they are, he urges Hirayama to sell, but Hirayama refuses, giving him some cash so he can take out Aya. When Hirayama runs out of gas on the way home, he is forced to sell a cassette for gas money.
Hirayama commences a tic-tac-toe game with a stranger after finding a piece of paper left hidden in a stall. The game continues over the course of the movie. He exchanges furtive glances with a strange woman eating lunch one bench over.
Aya catches up with Hirayama to return the cassette she'd stolen. She asks to play it in his van one last time, and then gives him a thank-you kiss on the cheek, leaving him visibly startled. On his free day, Hirayama does his laundry, takes the film with his tree photos to be developed, cleans his flat, buys a new book and dines out at a restaurant where the female proprietor shares gossip with him.
Niko, Hirayama's niece, shows up unannounced, having run away from his wealthy estranged sister Keiko's home. He lets Niko accompany him to work during the next two days. The two photograph the trees in the park and ride bikes together. Eventually, Keiko comes to pick up Niko in a chauffeured car. Keiko can't believe he is a public toilet cleaner and asks him to visit their father, who is ill and lives in a home. He refuses, but hugs his sister. As they depart, Hirayama begins to cry inconsolably.
Takashi quits without giving notice, leaving Hirayama to cover his shift. Later, as Hirayama goes to his usual restaurant, he opens the door and sees the owner embracing a man. Hirayama hurries off, buying beer and cigarettes to consume at a nearby riverbank. The man Hirayama saw at the restaurant approaches and asks him for a cigarette. The man tells him the restaurant owner is his ex-wife whom he hadn't seen in seven years, and that she opened her restaurant the year after divorcing him. He says he visited her to make peace before he dies from cancer, telling Hirayama to look after her. The two men then play with their shadows, eventually parting ways.
Hirayama begins a week driving his van on his way to work. As he listens to Nina Simone sing Feeling Good, his expression alternates between grinning broadly and appearing on the verge of tears.