2023-12-20 17:23:58
Film Wim Wenders’ „Perfect Days“
About the happiness of the simple life
As of: 1:46 p.m. | Reading time: 3 minutes
Always take it easy: Kôji Yakusho as Hirayama
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Americans call “Perfect Days,” shot in Tokyo, the best Wim Wenders film in 30 years. And the Japanese are sending him into the Oscar race as their candidate. The secret of his success? The quiet happiness of dedicating oneself to simple things with care.
Some films make you want to move into them. “Perfect Days” by Wim Wenders is one of those. In principle, it is the direct opposite of his artist portrait “Anselm”, which was only released in cinemas a few weeks ago: “Perfect Days” takes place on the other side of the world, in Japan. And then, in the 120 minutes that you wish would never end, the focus is not on a tortured genius, but on a humble, practically mute toilet cleaner named Hirayama.
Instead of capturing the horrors of the world on oversized canvases like Anselm Kiefer, Hirayama photographs the trees, always the same ones, during his lunch break in a Tokyo park. His life follows an eternal rhythm, like in “Groundhog Day,” except that the calendar follows its usual course and the seasons change.
Otherwise: everything is the same, the morning routine in the little place on the outskirts of town, ostensibly the shabby backdrop of a puny existence, but in reality the carefully maintained stage for a big heart that has just hidden away. He brushes his teeth, looks for a cassette with beautiful hippie songs: Fleetwood Mac, Patti Smith, Otis Redding. All originals from the 70s and 80s – a little treasure, as it turns out.
He makes his rounds in the minibus, mopping floors and polishing urinals. In contrast to a chatty colleague who is constantly late, Hirayama completes the menial job without complaint and conscientiously. He looks something like a Buddhist monk, only in a boiler suit instead of an orange habit. In the park he takes photos of the flora with a small camera and has a wordless flirtation with an employee. The two chew their bread and exchange chaste glances.
Japan’s Oscar Candidate
That doesn’t sound like much; However, as in his best times, Wenders manages to create a subliminal pull. The uniform flow of time, the regular change of scene – an after-work beer in a subway snack bar here, the spraying of the bonsai trees on the ledge there – has a hypnotic effect. You feel the toilet cleaner’s sadness when his personal mandala is interrupted by his niece, who has run away from her annoying business mother and her black SUV. Sooner or later it comes along and the mystery of Hirayama’s needless existence is hinted at.
That didn’t have to happen at all. Kôji Yakusho plays this man like a child who has grown too quickly; at the end the camera is on his delighted face for what feels like minutes. “Perfect Days” is Japan’s official nominee for the Best Foreign Film Oscar. It’s astonishing that the director himself is a foreigner, albeit one who has long been closely associated with Japanese culture. In any case, that’s completely fine, because the film is just that: amazing.
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