PERFECT DAYS
Type: Philosophical essay in film form
Direction: Wim Wenders. With Kōji Yakusho, Tokio Emoto, Arisa Nakano, Aoi Yamada, Yumi Aso, Sayuri Ishikawa, Tomozaku Miura, Min Tanaka
Let’s say it right away: Perfect Days it’s a little gem, small in size (the classic, “square” one of old-time films) but big in emotion and success. It tells the daily life of a fifty-year-old (Kōji Yakusho, Palme in Cannes for the interpretation) who cleans public toilets in Tokyo.
A methodical life, marked by always the same actions: the ritual of waking up, the work he carries out with obsessive attention (toilets in Japan look like small temples), lunch on the same bench, shower in a public bathroom (at home you only have one sink), dinner in a bar where he always gets the same thingsa book before falling asleep (also The wild palm trees by Faulkner) and then start again the next morning.
Kōji Yakusho in a scene from Wim Wenders’ film.
Only when traveling in his ultra-equipped mini-van does he listen to old tapes: Animals, Van Morrison, Lou Reed. Almost no words, just a few photographs of branches that stand out against the sky in search of peace which is neither renunciation nor moderation but rather a silent form of universal empathy. To invite us to think that happiness can also be the cancellation of desires.
For those who want to rediscover the best Wim Wenders of yesteryear.
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