Wim Wenders on ‘Perfect Days’: ‘Everything Feels Almost Holy’

It’s been four years since the world came to a halt and life, defined by quarantines and the fear of interaction, took a turn to isolation. It’s been about the same number of years that Wim Wenders has been on hiatus, returning with Academy Award nominated Perfect Days (2023), an ode to solitude. ‘I dreamt that societies would become better after the pandemic, and that we would take better care of each other’, Wenders told me ahead of the film’s UK release, ‘but then the opposite was the case.’ To the director, people seem to live more recklessly than before.

Koji Yakusho plays protagonist Hirayama who enjoys every moment of the simple routine he has created for himself: on his way to work as a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo, he listens to old cassettes in his car. During his lunch break he sits in the park and observes the people, appreciates the trees and occasionally captures a moment on an old film camera. Returning home, he reads a book before he goes to bed. ‘The spirit of the film is in the fact that everything feels almost holy’, Wenders explains, ‘because that’s how he looks at everything.’

The character of Hirayama was conceived during the director’s visit to Japan to see the Tokyo Toilet Project; ‘an art and social project’, as he called it, where fifteen public toilets in Shibuya, central Tokyo, were extraordinarily designed by international architects. After seeing this project, an example of how Japanese people took care of their city after the lockdown, Wenders thought there was a story to explore here. ‘Hirayama is the master of his life,’ the German director continues. ‘Everything he does, he does it because he wants to do it. Koji understood that, and there was no reason for us to film anything else than what lived out in front of us.’

Day in, day out, Hirayama’s routine remains unchanged, only courting disruption in the form of a petulant colleague and a girl who thanks him for listening to one of his cassettes with a kiss on the cheek. On the rare occasions that he speaks, his few words express humbleness or appreciation for the given moment. ‘I felt no uneasiness about the fact that there were only a few lines in the film,’ Yakusho said, who was sitting by Wenders’ side. ‘Here I am, this is what I am thinking and feeling’ is the simple philosophy the actor adopted to play the role of Hirayama.  

It was not just the actors who embraced Hirayama’s approach to life. Wenders explains to me that the film was originally called Komorebi, a Japanese word that describes the way sunlight filters through trees. But during 16 days of restless filming, Komorebi became Perfect Days after the director and co-writer Takuma Takasaki heard the Lou Reed song of a similar name play while filming a scene: without exchanging any words they both knew the name was just right.  

Very little is said in the film, but much can be discerned. Although Hirayama’s personal history is unknown to the audience, it’s clear that class distinctions are at play when his sister arrives in an expensive car to pick up her runaway daughter. The sister expresses disbelief when she questions her brother about whether he really works as a toilet cleaner. Maybe Hirayama had it all at some point but chose to leave a life of luxury behind to reinvent himself in ways which are now more meaningful to him? Wenders leaves the details to our imagination: ‘I wrote his story but I didn’t want to say it. I wanted the audience to fill in the story [for themselves].’ In a way, the audience is encouraged to approach the film the way Hirayama does life; leave the past behind and appreciate the current moment. ‘That’s what makes this film so rich,’ Yakusho adds. ‘I think every time you see it you’ll have a different experience.’

Each day in the film ends with one of Hirayama’s dreams. Those ‘dream installations’, as the director calls them, were filmed and edited by his wife, Donata Wenders, and are presented as black and white fragments of the protagonist’s day. ‘Through these scenes I realised that I dream in black and white,’ Yakusho said. ‘It made me wonder if any people dream in colour. Maybe Wim does.’

_{Main image: Wim Wenders, Perfect Days, 2023, film still. Courtesy: MASTER MIND Ltd}