If you had told the 20-year-old me that Wim Wenders was asked to make a series of short documentaries about the Tokyo Toilet Project, a redesign of 17 public toilets in the Shibuya ward, but instead made a feature-length drama about an introspective, observant, and painfully human individual whose largely thankless job is to clean those toilets, I would have said that was not for me. I am much older now, and after reading about the production process and having seen the original trailer for Perfect Days, that older me was excited to take in a movie that seemed exactly for me.
I admit that I found a lot in common with Hirayama, portrayed so perfectly so by Koji Yakusho in a role requiring a life of reflection and inward-looking analysis of what it means, or what we hope it means, to live a life in an ever-complicated, over-techified mash of experiences, frustrated by the inevitable truth that no matter how much we can't stand other people, we need society, and trees, and art, and clean, publicly accessible facilities where we can flush away the grimes and effluences that must result from living a life.
To appreciate Perfect Days, you must be able to sit quietly and pay attention for 120 minutes, a large task and large ask of that younger version of me. The older version of me found those 120 minutes to be comforting, magnanimous, and tersely impactful.
I admit that I found a lot in common with Hirayama, portrayed so perfectly so by Koji Yakusho in a role requiring a life of reflection and inward-looking analysis of what it means, or what we hope it means, to live a life in an ever-complicated, over-techified mash of experiences, frustrated by the inevitable truth that no matter how much we can't stand other people, we need society, and trees, and art, and clean, publicly accessible facilities where we can flush away the grimes and effluences that must result from living a life.
To appreciate Perfect Days, you must be able to sit quietly and pay attention for 120 minutes, a large task and large ask of that younger version of me. The older version of me found those 120 minutes to be comforting, magnanimous, and tersely impactful.