Review of Perfect Days, directed by Wim Wenders

If you’re new here and found this blog through the mysterious powers of the Internet, welcome! My name is Ashley, and I’m a dedicated reader and movie watcher who thought to turn this website into a little digital archive of sorts.

I was watching and reading so much that I wanted to keep track of it all, so I began blogging as a way to keep these books as memories somewhat forever.

That said, I recently fell into a period of unemployment, and this blog was a solace for me. Not only was it a way to make a little bit of money when there was nothing else coming my way really, but I found, after getting my finances in order, that I enjoyed sitting down to write blog posts when I had nothing else to do in my day.

If you like this review in the end, feel free to click around. This is my digital home, so I’m happy to have you here. This blog post is probably coming out a few months after I wrote it due to the sheer nature of the backlog I have right now.

Anyways, I had first heard about Perfect Days when it was debuting at the Cannes Film Festival. Back in 2023 I was working professionally as a film critic at an online outlet, so I was really tuned into the film festivals, especially when I had to go to New York to cover the film festival there.

But because I had to watch five other million movies for work and didn’t really watch much for my own pleasure, I ended up not watching this movie any time soon. I’m a master procrastinator when it comes to movies and books sometimes, and this is one of those cases where it took over a year to get to the movie.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to bore you to death with the mundane details of how we got here.

A toilet cleaner goes about his simple days and living in the city of Tokyo.

Upfront, the main character of this movie is someone who I want to exemplify in my everyday life. He pretty much embodies the concept of simple living, and he doesn’t work a high stress job. What’s interesting about this movie is our protagonist is so mundane and ordinary, but the film still makes his life pretty beautiful. Pretty poetic.

His name is Hirayama, and he’s a toilet cleaner in a richer neighborhood in Tokyo. He lives on the other side of town in a more modest and middle class neighborhood, and we, as the viewers, go on him through a cycle of his days working, listening to music, and reading books by various authors before going to bed. We also get a glimpse of his dreams.

His assistant is someone that can be considered the exact opposite of him, as he’s louder. Hirayama is someone who barely speaks, gardens, and spends his lunches alone under a tree with the same sandwiches. A break in his routine occurs when Aya, a woman, appears at the toilet and needs to use it, and Takashi tries to leave with her.

He asks Hirayama for his van once they’re both done, as his bike won’t start, and when he borrows the car he takes one of Hirayama’s Patti Smith records. Takashi then tells him that he should sell some of his cassettes, as they’re probably worth a good amount of money at this point, but he refuses.

However, he’s forced to sell a cassette when his car runs out of gas on the way home, and he has no money to pay for it. We see how he interacts with people randomly, like playing a tic tac toe game with a stranger, or sharing glances with some women eating lunch at the same place as him.

Aya does end up giving back the Patti Smith cassette, as she enjoyed it, and asks him to play it one last time. She kisses him on the cheek on the way out. Next we see him having a day off, where he does laundry, picks up a new book, drops off photos to be developed, and then goes to a restaurant.

His niece then arrives, and he’s surprised to see her. Turns out she ran away from home and she now starts joining him on his work days. They go on photography adventures together and ride bikes, but then her mother shows up to take her away. His sister then reveals their father’s dementia worsened, and Hirayama hugs her before she leaves.

She asks him before she leaves if he cleans toilets, which probably is a condescending question in some ways, and he begins crying when they leave. Takashi quits the next day, and Hirayama sees the owner of the restaurant he always goes to with a man. He leaves, picks up some highballs and cigarettes, then the man approaches him.

Turns out that’s the owner’s ex-husband. He’s dying of cancer, and he wants Hirayama to look after her. They drink together and play tag, then leave. The movie ends with Hirayama driving to work again, listening to Nina Simone, but he appears quite emotional compared to the beginning of the film.

Overall Thoughts

This is a movie I genuinely loved a lot; it reflects a lot about the ordinary world and lives we live. Often movies are about extraordinary people who live outside of the norms of society, but this is an average guy who’s just cleaning toilets and enjoying his music, photographs of trees, and books every so often.

He has this sense of inner peace, which is excellently portrayed by the lead actor. There’s a lot to admire, but then he has a lot of empathy as well, as seen with how he interacts with others. There are some poignant acts of kindness in the film, which makes him extraordinary—anyone can be extraordinary, that’s what I took away from this.

That said, I do recommend this movie if you’re interested in the plot or what it has to say. I’ve never seen a Wenders movie before, but I’ll be checking out his movies in the future. I want to return to this movie in the near future, as it really emotionally resonated with me.

Follow me below on Instagram and Goodreads for more.