"Next Time is Next Time. Now is Now": A Review of Perfect Days

I have been a fan of Wim Wenders, the German filmmaker, for a long time. What I admire most about his films is their invitation to look carefully and their deep attention to the human endeavor. His masterful Paris, Texas (1984) is a difficult watch, so it took me some time and attention to learn that despite its journey into dark places, it is a film about redeeming the past. More affecting for me is his (lesser known) Don’t Come Knocking (2005), which I taught in a film class for many years, as its striking visuals, stinging music (written and performed by T Bone Burnett), and fine editing make it very teachable. Pause the film anywhere and there’s something to talk about. Oh, and it features a 1951 Studebaker Clipper Deluxe in Maui Blue.

The vehicle in Wenders’ new film, Perfect Days (2023), is a 90’s Daihatsu Hijet, a panel truck that the main character, Hirayama (played by acclaimed Japanese actor, Kôji Yakusho), uses to drive to around Tokyo, where his job, as his coveralls proclaim, is that of a toilet cleaner. His van is as carefully organized as Hirayama is efficient (I’d want him to clean my toilets), though that order is disrupted in one scene when Hirayama allows a disaffected young co-worker and his girlfriend to borrow the van, consigning him to the cargo area, where toilet paper rolls and cleaning tools fly about. The film is very much about order and disorder—a point Wenders makes in this scene—but not always in ways you’d think.

The panel truck is also Hirayama’s (I learn his name—appropriately—means “peaceful mountain”) happy place, from which he sees the same sights each day (but with fresh eyes) and where he plays his carefully curated set of cassette tapes of ‘60’s and ‘70’s (mostly) American music, including Lou Reed, Van Morrison, the Kinks, and Otis Redding. In the final scene, which must be seen and not merely described, Hirayama is playing Nina Simone’s cover of “Feeling Good,” a song that shows up in numerous movies but has never been used so authentically. A single shot through the windshield captures Hirayama’s journey in his face, before the scene resolves into a shot of the sunrise—“It’s a new dawn / It’s a new day . . . And I’m feeling good.”

Wenders was invited by his eventual co-writer, Takuma Takasaki, to do a series of short documentaries on Tokyo’s Toilet Project. When Wenders saw the public potties, he conceived instead of a fictional film, though one shot in a documentary style. Enter Hirayama.

This film should be boring but it’s not: Hirayama is a man of meticulous routine, and we repeatedly watch him fold his bedding or purchase cold brew coffee from a vending machine or pull out a mirror to check under a toilet rim (as the bathroom cleaner in our house, I am ashamed that I don’t do so!). A great deal of the film is spent watching him clean these remarkable public toilets. And he almost never speaks.

Wenders dares us to find all this routine tedious, but we cannot. Why not? The reasons are multiple, beginning with the meticulousness of the film itself—we are invited, for instance, to see Hirayama’s small apartment, the public bathhouse he visits, his van, the food he is served in a below-ground restaurant, all with compelling interest. Each frame of the film begs our notice, which is sort of the point. And Wenders introduces subtle changes to his shooting of Hirayama’s day—sort of as variations find their way into minimalist music. Also, as suggested above, the actor’s presence—his face and demeanor—demands attention, the more so as he speaks so little. And it’s not merely that we have to adjust our cultural expectations, dialing down our patience to an Eastern pace: Wenders has more in mind, and it involves seeing the other with dignity. In fact, that is the work not only of the narrative but also of the film itself.

But the real reason the film defies the boredom that would seem to characterize Hirayama’s life is that it is really not boring at all. Hirayama, we learn, is utterly content and satisfied. In one scene his sister shows up to recover her runaway daughter (this is one event that breaks Hirayama’s routine), giving us hints of a privileged, maybe even powerful, past and thus some profound change. But Wenders is careful to point out in interviews—and the film would make it clear anyway—that Hirayama has chosen this life, one with sufficient, but not extravagant, means and with a satisfying rhythm. He likes his life, and, perhaps against our expectations, we do too. That Hirayama embraces each day (see Lisa Simone) with joy is communicated to us each time Hirayama leaves his apartment, when he looks up at the heavens and smiles a small smile.

The most remarkable things about Hirayama are his attention and his respect. Especially for American viewers, it might be easy to read his respect as some sort of subservience, as when he stands placidly outside the bathroom door to let a patron use the facilities. Turns out, that apparent passivity is really respect born of dignity—his own and that of everyone he encounters. Hirayama sees everyone he comes across—a homeless man in the park, his crazy young coworker, his niece, a woman who has lunch one park bench down from him—with the utmost respect. He simply notices them (again, a place where the work of the film and of the character converge: we are called to notice, too). So Hirayama is unflustered when demands are put upon him (except when his company fails to supply him with the help he needs—we’ve all been there): he is open to anyone who crosses his path, seeing their humanity.

Hirayama’s respect and attention extend to nature: he spends his lunches in a park where he gazes up at the trees and regularly photographs them with an obsolete camera that uses real film, compiling a vast record of photos which he curates and stores in boxes. His niece, along for the day, declares that he loves his trees (and one in particular), and Hirayama admits that she is right.

Indeed, Hirayama’s understanding of his work and his view of the world—and maybe understanding is the wrong word, for what we see in him is a kind of incarnation of these things—chime well with what we profess as a Reformed understanding of vocation and of our relationship to the created world. In an NPR interview with Scott Simon, Wenders says Hirayama is a “craftsman” and that “he likes to be of service.” And at Cannes (where the film debuted, and where Yakusho won an award for best actor), Wenders said, “He has a huge respect for every living thing and every person.” Is this the place to mention that Wenders is a person of faith?

As I have already suggested, there are some variations to his routine, most significantly when his runaway teenage niece shows up at his door. But just as his dedication to what we might see as a lowly occupation (his co-worker tells him not to work so hard since the toilets will just get dirty again), runs against our expectations, so these interruptions do not lead to what moviegoers may expect—as a kind of jumpstart to his life. He doesn’t need one. Instead, these events are part and parcel of his life, which he receives with characteristic grace. And when he is knocked back a bit (I will let you see when), he quickly finds himself in a position to offer both advice and playful intuition. At one point, he tells his niece, who is eager to know what happens next, “Next time is next time. Now is now.” It’s a refrain they chant as they weave their bikes across a bridge. It’s what she—and maybe we—need to hear.

The best films, the best art, not only examine life, helping us to notice what we haven’t seen before, but they ask us to change our lives. And this is one of those films. At least, it challenges me to see better and to act better. Particularly, not to see routine as stifling but to see each day, each thing, as worthy of attention. And to distinguish being alone from being lonely. Even more, to treat every person—including myself, I suppose—with dignity and respect. This begins with seeing—truly seeing—which is this film’s gift and its genuinely spiritual message.