Perfect Days

“Oh, it's such a perfect day

I'm glad I spent it with you

Oh, such a perfect day

You just keep me hanging on”

Perfect Days, the latest film from legendary German auteur Wim Wenders, is deceptively simple. Set in bustling Tokyo, Kôji Yakusho’s Hirayama has a set routine structured around his mundane, though slightly satisfying, toilet-cleaning job. In the busy, modern world, Hirayama is allied with the obsolete: he listens to cassette tapes, he buys second-hand novels, he takes pictures on film of trees, and we catch glimpses of his life before which has dragged him to this full stop in his life now. Perfect Days is meditative, frequently slowing down to listen to a song, to watch a British tourist stare at high-tech and actually existing public toilets in awe (why can’t we have these??), but the film’s simplicity reveals an undercurrent of emptiness and loneliness. However, Hirayama manages to be content – happy even – most of the time, and Perfect Days keeps returning to the same themes: less is more, now is now and, most inspiringly, other people’s happiness can be your happiness too. Perfect Days has already received a lot of acclaim from critics, Cannes, and The Academy, and rightfully so, but its real power lies in how personal it can be to you, simply, it is one of the most beautiful films you will see this year.

Daniel Kallin