Perfect Days (2023)

(dir. Wim Wenders) Hirayama (Kōji Yakusho), a reticent toilet cleaner in Japan, enjoys a simple daily routine that rarely changes. The film shows us this routine, and then shows a number of events that upset Hirayama’s carefully-arranged “perfect days”.

The meditative pace reminds me of The Taste of Things, but while that film showed showed how the slow preparation and enjoyment of food was intertwined with personal relationships, this is a much more solitary film. Hirayama’s combination of work, 60s & 70s American music, photography, restaurants, and reading is his way of finding contentment, but the life of this “urban hermit” in ultra-modern Tokyo seems far less appealing to me than being in love with your cook in the Loire Valley.

Putting aside the comparison, however, some searching about the film took me to an interesting article by Luca Galofaro on ArchDaily, pointing out Perfect Days’ connections to Moriyama-San, a 2017 documentary about a Japanese “enlightened amateur” living in Tokyo, and to an article about the Buddhist possibilities of being an Urban Hermit by Mu Soeng. Well worth a read if you enjoyed the film’s tranquillity. ★★★★☆