love, humanity and quiet places in perfect days
kondo wa kondo. ima wa ima.
i watched perfect days yesterday. i am writing about it today.
it’s rare that i feel such an intense need to write about media so incredibly soon after experiencing it, but perfect days really is just one of those films. following the rigid daily routine and unexpected complications in the life of hirayama, a senior staff member of tokyo toilet, the film is minimalist, to say the least. with each morning beginning the same — awoken by a street cleaner, brushing his teeth, trimming his moustache, choosing a cassette tape for the day — and his day mostly spent cleaning shibuya’s gentrified toilets before returning to his modest and certainly ungentrified apartment, it is in the moments between this routine that perfect days finds its voice.
there is sometimes a derision towards ‘nothing cinema’ — films in which much of the messaging and emotional complexity is left to implications, and there are few to no major plot points to serve as dramatic divisions between acts. in case the previous paragraph didn’t make it clear, perfect days could absolutely be described as one of these films. hirayama’s routine is so incredibly rigid that it is deliberately used as a framing device, with the dawns of each new day essentially being the divisions between acts themselves, despite not much changing between them. however, this is absolutely not a criticism of the film. director wim wenders uses this repetitive framing to draw attention to the small, unexpected events that occur outside of hirayama’s routine, and the inherent humanity found in interactions one cannot see coming.
hirayama is not a particularly social man. he spends much of his time alone — not due to a helpless isolation from others, but moreso a wondrous self-sufficiency and ability to find joy in almost anything around him. very few words of dialogue are said by hirayama, instead acting almost as a spectator to the interactions happening around him. even when spoken to directly by his coworker takashi and takashi’s (not) girlfriend aya about his cassette collection — with takashi simply interested in the contemporary worth of selling the retro recordings, while aya would much rather listen to the patti smith tape playing than takashi’s ramblings — hirayama says nothing, his gentle nods and eyebrow raises enough to communicate his slight distaste for takashi’s brashness and joy at aya’s interest. of course, this wouldn’t be nearly as effective without koji yakusho’s absolutely stunning acting; while a deliberate lack of dialogue can be a pitfall that ends up making a character unfortunately confusing instead of affably mysterious, yakusho’s ability to present complex emotions with just the precise movements of his face and body is a huge factor in what makes hirayama so compelling and welcoming as a character.
even without speaking, hirayama is still shown to happily socialise with those around him. one of the most quietly powerful elements of the film is an ongoing tic-tac-toe game that he begins in one of shibuya’s many public toilets: hirayama finds a piece of scrap paper with a grid drawn out, writes in an x in as his first move and slips the paper in-between stalls for any visitor to play. the game continues over the course of the runtime, amidst hirayama finding himself in several new and unrelated situations, always checking back to see if the stranger has played their next move. when the game finally finishes in a draw, hirayama finds the paper adorned with a ‘thank you!’ written alongside the stranger’s final o in the grid. this subplot adds very little to the story objectively, but it exists as a microcosm of the message wenders is putting forward with the film as a whole: humanity can be found in the smallest places, and it truly doesn’t take much to make another person smile. after all, if every day can be a little different, then maybe every day can be a little special.
hirayama’s silence is not a permanent fixture of his interactions in the film, as the latter half of the film sees him at his most vocal. this is thanks to two characters who appear almost out of nowhere: his beloved niece niko and utter stranger tomoyama, who contrast the rest of the film by drawing out hirayama’s voice for different but equally powerful reasons. in niko’s case, hirayama is evidently at his most comfortable around her, happy to have her tag along to his workday and his traditionally lone moments of quiet reflection in the sun-dappled forests, even joining her in breaking into song on a riverside bike ride. niko disappears from the narrative almost as quickly as she arrives, picked up by his wealthy sister keiko, whom niko ran away from to join hirayama in the first place. before departing, keiko asks him, with a tone of condescending pity, if he truly cleans toilets for a living. hirayama simply nods, with not an ounce of shame. he knows that what he does is good for those around him, and that’s enough to be proud, regardless of it being perceived as ‘dirty’ by some.
tomoyama, conversely, is a man hirayama has no connection to, meeting by inadvertently walking in on tomoyama during a somewhat intimate moment with the owner of his regular izakaya. eventually finding hirayama drinking alone by the riverside, tomoyama reveals the owner is his ex-wife, and he was there to apologise to her before he passes away due to cancer. prior to offering tomoyama one of his canned highballs and lightening the mood with a wonderfully innocent game of shadow tag, hirayama and this stranger-turned-friend open their hearts to each other. despite not knowing him at all, tomoyama ruefully asks hirayama to take care of her in his stead; although they have no reason to care about each other, these strangers are willing to give love to each other and those around them, simply because it is the right thing to do.
hirayama’s interactions with niko and tomoyama, while truthfully quite minor events, are the clearest moments of what the film has been putting forward all this time; that humans will always choose love, in even the smallest ways and when there is no self-serving reason to. the film closes on a prolonged one-take of hirayama driving to work, soundtracked by nina simone’s ‘feeling good’, with a flurry of joy and sorrow crashing across his face under the morning sun. while a little on-the-nose, wenders’ pairing of audio and video could not be more perfect. as the final shot, dawn’s warm orange glow falling over hirayama’s beaming smile and tear-stricken eyes, begins to fade, the last thing the audience hears is simone singing hirayama’s own mantra:
it’s a new dawn, it’s a new day. it’s a new life for me.