At 78 years old, Wim Wenders is still going strong. After recent years dedicated to making documentaries, shorts and music videos, the director of cult works such as Paris, Texas or The Sky Over Berlin, returns to his best cinema with Perfect Days, a beautiful and simple story full of humanity that follows the daily routine of a lonely middle-aged man who works cleaning Tokyo’s public toilets with astonishing meticulousness. Hirayama – masterfully played by Koji Yakusho, winner of the best actor award at the Cannes festival – is happy reading Faulkner at night, photographs trees with his analog camera and listens to old cassettes by Lou Reed, Patti Smith and Van in his van. Morrison. The film premieres this Friday in Spain and is Japan’s representative at the Oscars.
How did the idea come about to make a film about a man who cleans toilets for a living?
The truth is that everything arose spontaneously when I was invited to go to Tokyo in May 2022 to see some social and artistic projects that fifteen famous architects had done. They normally built stadiums, skyscrapers, banks and museums, but now they had designed some very special public toilets. They asked me if I would come to see them with the idea that they would inspire me to make some short documentaries. It had been a long time since I was in Tokyo and when I looked at those toilets I felt great happiness to be in the city again. But a documentary project fell short. I felt like there was something much bigger to do there at that moment. There was a more emotional story behind it all because I liked baths. And it turned out that it coincided with the moment when people in Tokyo left their homes again after the longest pandemic lockdown in history. They were really locked in for almost two years. The way they reoccupied the city was very emotional.
What surprised you so much?
I was very surprised how they held parties in the park and how they enjoyed using all their common spaces in a respectful way again. And that for me was very important. In my own city, Berlin, the small park near my house was left in a pile of rubbish and destroyed two weeks after the end of lockdown. It no longer served as a park. It had become a huge ashtray. It was very sad. And I felt in a very particular way that the pandemic in Europe, and especially in Berlin, had a great victim: the sense of social responsibility or the common good. And the way the Japanese took care of these parks, even if they hadn’t been in them for two years, was very responsible. They were extremely careful. And that sense of the common good in Japan, that care for the little things is a very beautiful theme. So I told the producers that I would prefer to make a fictional story with those bathrooms and that it would be much more moving than a documentary series that no one would actually go to see. To my surprise, they accepted.
The film, in fact, is a love letter to Japan…
Yes. I have put in it everything I like about that country. I have been in love with its culture since I first discovered it in the 70s. The only thing I had to write was a script and it was quite easy for me to write it because I really enjoyed my stay there. And I remembered the films of my admired Yasujiro Ozu. I think I’ve made a film in the spirit of Ozu’s about a man who takes care of those bathrooms. Somehow it has turned out to be a zen film. It was shot very quickly, in 16 days, in an easy and simple way like some of my first films. I feel like making it has been a great gift.
What would you say you have in common with Hirayama’s character?
Well, I think a lot. I mean, I don’t live in a place that simple, but I’d like to. And the truth is that I have started to get rid of many material things. I have collected too many things that I have ended up giving away and I feel better. I liked the idea of ??a man who was a minimalist and who was happy with very little and who was good at recycling things. Owning very little and being happy with what you have is a great ideal for my own life and I have not achieved it, but I am trying. And there is a whole generation right now of young people in both the United States and Europe who are trying to live on little to have a full life. I like this purity and this new approach to living and sharing. And in a strange way, Hirayama’s character is an ode to this generation.
Why do you think you are such a perfectionist and meticulous in everything you do, especially when it comes to cleaning other people’s toilets?
He is a Japanese craftsman and Japanese craftsmen have that dedication to the little things and he follows that tradition. He has used his tools to do the job and is very meticulous because every time he does something he wants it to be worth it. So he can only do it if he does it well. He is doing something very simple and that gives him satisfaction. And it gives him satisfaction to know that he does it for others to enjoy, not for himself. He, in fact, has everything he needs. He listens to the music he likes, he has a job he likes and a life he likes. And every night he can read a book that he likes. What more does he need? He doesn’t suffer from the things that most of us, including me, suffer from. We always feel like we are missing something. I mean, I have so many books I still want to read and I have so many piled up on my nightstand… I need a year to read them and get rid of them. And I have a million records and CDs and I have so much music that I only got to listen to once in my life that I really miss the time when I had 20 records and that made me very happy because I was more connected to music than now that I have so many thousands Of discs. So in a strange way he is a utopian character, but that utopia is something that we all carry within us. I only know people who don’t have enough time for everything he wants to do and Hirayama has enough time for everything he wants to do and he goes to bed happy. And that is something notable today. And I thought that if I told the life of a man like that it could be an encouragement to other people.
Kôji Yakusho is incredible in a role where looks and gestures prevail more than words. What has it been like to work with him?
He is without a doubt the best actor and I was really excited when he won the award at the Cannes festival. I was very confident that he would make it. I knew that Kôji was the best possible actor for this role. I had always admired him a lot. He had known all of his films for more than 30 years, even the most modest ones that he made and that only came out in Japan. Samurai and police movies. So when the idea came up to make this film in Tokyo, I knew there was only one man who wanted it and the producers contacted Kôji. He accepted even before reading the script. When I met him he had that kindness, generosity and dedication that I dreamed this man would have. He has very loving eyes and is just a wonderful person and a great actor. I shot with it as if it were a documentary, without rehearsals. We had a very good collaboration. And we don’t talk much because I don’t speak Japanese and he doesn’t speak English. We had a translator, but in the end we ended up understanding each other with gestures. He immediately grasped who the character was.
The title of the film is inspired by the Lou Reed song that the protagonist listens to in his vehicle. What would a perfect day be like for you?
A perfect day for me is when I can read a book before going to sleep and feel like it’s been a good day. But it’s something that doesn’t happen as often as I would like. A perfect day is when you don’t feel like you’re missing anything and you do everything you do fully consciously and you’re happy doing it. And at the end of the day, you have no regrets.