Wim Wenders’ Japanese Character Study, ‘Perfect Days,’ is a Return to Form for Vet German Director
The German veteran has made a deceptively simple, touching ode to working routine and human connection.
Lou Reed’s rock standard “Perfect Day” does make an appearance in Wenders’ Perfect Days: on the protagonist’s stereo as sunlight pours into his small, neat Tokyo apartment, before swarming the soundtrack as we head out into the city on weekend afternoon.
The protagonist Hirayama, a mellow soft-spoken toilet cleaner, who’s into simple pleasures, is splendidly played by Kōji Yakusho.
His solitary life is built around the things that make him happy and the work that keeps him solvent.
Wenders’ film, which is sincere and unassuming, is defined by sentimentality with good humor.
“Perfect Days” lacks the ecstatic spiritualist philosophy of “Wings of Desire” or the penetrating poetry of human and cultural desolation that marked “Paris, Texas.”
But the new film’s humane, hopeful embrace of everyday blessings is enough to make it Wenders’ freshest, most rewarding and arthouse-friendly fiction feature in years.
“Perfect Days” bows in Cannes mere days after the director’s dazzling 3D art documentary, “Anselm.”
Both films demonstrate the range of forms, scales and tones 0f the director’s rich work over the past half a century.
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