In Tokyo, the peaceful and carefully regulated life of a public toilet cleaner is turned upside down by the surprise visit of his runaway niece.
For 50 years, German filmmaker Wim Wenders has observed the flight of lonely beings, in search of lost happiness. The director of Paris, Texas and of The state of things explores solitude in the multitude. His new film, which follows the daily life of a solitary soul in a city of 37 million inhabitants, brilliantly demonstrates this!
Selected at the last Cannes Film Festival, in the running for an Oscar in the best international film category, Perfect Days was filmed in Tokyo. It marks the return to Japan of this globe-trotting filmmaker who directed the documentary Tokyo-Ga in 1985. With few dialogues and great wisdom in the choice of images and shots, Wenders creates here a minimalist and moving work of fiction.
The title refers to a Lou Reed song. But also to the state of mind of the central character, Hirayama (wonderful Kōji Yakusho), a man with a radiant smile and in communion with nature. He leads a solitary and orderly life: his routine is regulated like a ritual!
Hirayama works maintaining public toilets in central Tokyo, and lives modestly in the shadow of the Tokyo Skytree tower. After his maintenance work, he goes to eat and have a drink (always in the same place), then spends his evenings reading. He is also passionate about photography and always carries an old camera with him. On his way to work, in his van he listens to cassettes of rock artists from the 1960s and 1970s that he collects, such as Otis Redding, Patti Smith, The Animals, the Stones, The Velvet Underground…
Wim Wenders co-wrote the screenplay with Takuma Takasaki, to help him capture the essence of Japanese culture. For example, in Japan, public toilets are clean and quiet places; a common good at the service of a modest and anxious, private and affable people. Like the protagonist, a man both transparent and mysterious, defended with finesse by Yakusho, awarded at Cannes for his interpretation.
If the story takes place in 2023, the hero seems to live in the past. The unexpected arrival of his teenage niece, Niko, who has run away, will reveal a dark side of the character. Because this apparently uneventful man keeps an old and secret wound deep in his heart.
At the end, Hirayama, behind the wheel of his van, holds back tears as he listens to Nina Simone singing in the dawn light. Between joy and sadness, we realize with him that “life is only a passing shadow”. Fortunately, there is the cinema (and photography) of an artist like Wenders to capture its beautiful, rich light.
In theaters in Montreal and from February 23 elsewhere in Quebec. Showing in the original version with French subtitles and in the original version with English subtitles.
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Drama
Perfect Days (V. F.: The perfect days)
Wim Wenders
Koji Yakusho, Tokio Emoto, Arisa Nakano
2:06 a.m.