Review: Perfect Days

Oliver Paul reviews Perfect Days , as Wim Wenders’ quiet, unassuming film reminds us all to slow down.

Attention spans are dwindling in the 21st century. This is probably the hundredth article you’ve seen this week that mentions how we’re all glued to our phones. Hell, if it weren’t for Top Gun: Maverick, (god knows how… or indeed why it saved the industry) we’d all probably be asking: ‘Hey do you remember those things… movies?? They were more than 15 seconds long!’ Well, German director Wim Wenders seems to have been paying attention to all this nonsense and appears to have the antidote. His new film, Perfect Days, urges its audience to slow down, take in each day, and breathe in the beautiful, green, living world around us.

We follow Hirayama, a cleaner for The Tokyo Toilet (public toilets) as he wakes up in the morning, puts his fold-up mattress in the corner of his minimalist living room, brushes his teeth, waters his plants, grabs an e-number filled chilled coffee from a vending machine outside his house and drives to work, where he takes pride in keeping The Tokyo Toilet spick and span. Then, we watch Hirayama as he wakes up in the morning, puts his fold-up mattress in the corner of his minimalist living room, brushes his teeth, waters his plants, grabs a e-number-filled chilled coffee from a vending machine outside his house, and drives to work, where he takes pride in keeping The Tokyo Toilet spick and span.

It’s no joke, this is a slow one. If you want action, I am sure Dune: Part 2 (which you can probably hear from your screening) is making full use of the subwoofers next door. However, if you’ll allow it, this film will guide you by the hand into a world I think a lot of us, myself included, have forgotten – the real world. Hirayama doesn’t have a smartphone, nor does he watch television. Backed by his passion for music (and a killer soundtrack), he reads, he looks up at trees, and enjoys the small interactions he has with people. There is something so wonderful about Kōji Hashimoto’s reserved yet contented facial expression. I found myself smiling along with him.

This is not to say his life is entirely perfect. Supporting characters like Takashi (played by amusing Tokio Emoto) provide some insight into his hermit existence, although I found some of these sub-plots a tad contrived. The 4:3 ratio is highly effective in framing the shots of cleaning and notably, the Tokyo Skytree, the famous broadcasting tower. It is a prominent motif in the film with a dominating concrete presence, hypocritically framed against a protagonist with an obsession with mother earth. 

I found myself coming out of the cinema feeling truly tranquil, and not wanting to toil through a load of processed garbage on Instagram – for the first time in, I must admit, quite a long time. 

Words by Oliver Paul

(Cover Image: THW)