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The fact that writer-director Wim Wenders called a movie about toilet cleaning “Perfect Days” might strike some viewers as the height of absurdity, even perverse humor. But once they glimpse Hirayama in action, the dreams (literal and figurative) behind the monotony are revealed in a series of revealing moments. Wenders, who wrote “Perfect Days” with Takuma Takasaki, was inspired by a visit to the Tokyo Toilet Project, where more than a dozen creators designed public installations that are elegant testaments to dignity, ingenuity and aesthetic excellence. Instead of creating a documentary, which might have been expected, Wenders conceived a protagonist who is as easily taken for granted as the public spaces where he works.
Fortunately, Wenders takes the time to look…and look back. Hirayama shares a name with the main character of “An Autumn Afternoon,” the latest film by legendary Japanese minimalist Yasujiro Ozu. “Perfect Days” shares Ozu’s poetic and contemplative rhythms at their most lyrical; Even Wenders’s square body evokes a calmer, more harmonious time. (“Perfect Days” is filmed with crystalline clarity by Franz Lustig.) Yakusho, who won an acting award for his performance at Cannes last year, lends Chaplin-like charm to a character who in more condescending hands could be pathetic or , even worse, , too adorable for words. But as Hirayama comes into focus (largely through a silent series of carefully repeated actions and then through some unexpected encounters with coworkers, neighbors, and others), his inner life deepens. It turns out that what seems like ascetic isolation is a busy life full of meditative discipline and precision; A confrontation later in the film suggests that lingering anger and resignation might also be at play.
Or maybe not. Wenders doesn’t answer all the questions posed in “Perfect Days,” which has more than a whiff of Jim Jarmusch at his most wryly absurd. Instead, the filmmaker and his monumentally modest hero are content to sit with the mystery: trimming his mustache, wearing his stylish blue jumpsuit, performing old songs by the likes of Lou Reed, Van Morrison and the Kinks, reveling in the stunning natural architecture and built from Tokyo. landscapes, and meticulously scrubbing and shining those fabulously custom-made latrines. It’s a life, of course. But at its most fleeting, ecstatic, and spiritually attuned, it is also a wonderful life.
P.G.. In the area’s cinemas. Contains profanity, partial nudity and smoking. In Japanese with subtitles. 123 minutes.