Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
Hirayama is content with his life as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Outside of his structured routine, he cherishes music on cassette tapes, books, and taking photos of trees. Through unexpected encounters, he reflects on finding beauty in the world.
Perfect Days is a quietly meditative character study anchored by Koji Yakusho's exceptional, largely wordless performance as Hirayama — a role that earned him Cannes Best Actor. Wim Wenders captures Tokyo's public toilets and dappled tree canopies with luminous, painterly cinematography that elevates the mundane into the transcendent. The plot is deliberately minimal — almost no conventional narrative arc — which is the point philosophically but limits dramatic engagement for general audiences. The film's slice-of-life approach to solitude and routine is sensitively executed but not wholly unprecedented (echoes of Ozu are unmistakable). The ending's famous close-up of Yakusho cycling — cycling through joy and grief simultaneously — is emotionally resonant without being neatly resolved, which feels honest but may frustrate some.