‘Perfect Days’ is day-in-the-life bliss | review

Koji Yakusho and Arisa Nakano in Wim Wenders' Perfect Days | Courtesy of TIFF

NYFF 2023 | A Tokyo toilet cleaner enjoys his routine-driven simple life. But unexpected detours force him to face what is simple and what is safe.

Perfect Days is a slight but entertaining and profound day-in-the-life romp through Tokyo that meditates on the dignity of making a living, protecting your peace, and both the beauty and trappings of routine. With an impressive watershed performance by Kōji Hashimoto and Wim Wenders' sensitive direction, Perfect Days is a simple near-masterpiece.

Perfect Days is playing the 2023 New York Film Festival.

You might also like: First Cow, Weekend, Past Lives

There's something about the way Wim Wenders' Perfect Days shows us a day in the life of the its middle-aged hero Hirayama (Kōji Hashimoto) that is so comforting — the cinematic equivalent of a weighted blanket. Each morning, he wakes up in his modest apartment, makes his bed, carefully waters his plants, steps out donning blue coveralls with “The Tokyo Toilet” scrawled on the back, grabs his morning coffee and sets out on his job cleaning the city's vast network of public toilets — something the people of Tokyo have always taken pride in. His work is also something Hirayama takes pride in. His coworker Takashi (Emoto Tokio) even marvels that he brings his own equipment to work. “How can you put so much in a job like this?” he asks. Like most of their exchanges, Hirayama is quiet.

But that doesn't mean that he's silent. There are moments of pure bliss. Like when he steps out of his apartment and looks at the clear sky or teaches a British woman how to use the high tech bathroom — the glass opaques when you lock the door! — a soft smile finds his way to his face. Even when things aren't great he seems content — a drunk business man knocking over the “Wet Floor” sign or an angry mother snubbing him when he finds her lost son. And the movie continues on that way for a large portion of its runtime introducing new elements to his daily routine that slowly unlock the mystery of Hirayama's past.

But it's never boring. The same way that Kelly Reichardt finds texture in the slow burn of her movies — particularly First Cow — Wenders finds small moments of magic in Hirayama's days. One of the most impactful is his nightly drink at a local bar run by a woman affectionately known as Mama (revered enka singer Sayuri Ishikawa) trills out a Japanese rendition of “House of the Rising Sun” that punctuates the melancholic tone to the movie.

It's in these diversions from his routine where Perfect Days fully captures you. One day, Takashi's “girlfriend” (Aoi Yamada) comes to visit him at work (“A real ten out of ten”) as he would say. But after his motorcycle fails to start he convinces Hirayama to let them drive his van to the bar… with Hirayama in the van. The two young would-be lovers are fascinated by him and his collection of American cassettes ranging from Van Morrison to Lou Reed, which provide a perfect vibey soundtrack. But it's when Takashi lets slip “being alone at your age” before trailing off. Hirayama doesn't take much from it, but we do.

However, the movie takes its biggest turn when Hirayama's precocious teen niece (Arisa Nakano) shows up at his door step. It's a bit of a shock for us as he comes off a detached loner. To learn he has family just adds to his depth. We'll learn a bit more about why he chose this life of protected peace. His niece, a mirror to himself in some ways, forces him to look at his life and choices from a birds eye view and allows us to do the same. But it also gives us insight to his philosophy as he tells her, “Next time is next time. Now is now.”

The final shot is a marvel — and puts Hashitomo's performance in contention for one of the best of the year. Like the rest of the movie everything and nothing is happening at the same time. Wenders captures the feeling of walking or driving through your city at golden hour. Everything is the same but looks different. It feels nostalgic, melancholic but — and maybe this is Wenders' point — meaningful. As Nina Simone croons out “Feeling Good” over an unbroken long shot of Hirayama's face illuminated by the sun a sense of satisfaction creeps over us — like when you reach the final perfect line of a simple poem. Perfect Days is a well-constructed meditation. Simple, relatable but will follow you for the rest of your day.

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Hey! I'm Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I'm also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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Karl Delossantos

Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.