PERFECT DAYS pg

With Perfect Days, the veteran German director Wim Wenders has created his best film since his 1980s heydays (Wings of Desire; Paris Texas). He takes the most unlikely story, the daily routines and simple life of a middle aged man (Hirayama, played by Yakusho Kōji) who cleans toilets in Tokyo, and turns it into something moving, contemplative and meaningful.

The script and indeed the plot is minimal. Hirayama’s interactions with colleagues and the shop and cafe workers he meets every day form a counterbalance to his steady routines, and the arrival of his runaway niece enables us to find out more about his philosophy; “Next time is next time. Now is now." Perfect Days also has a cracking soundtrack including music by The Animals, Nina Simone and (of course) a certain Lou Reed song.

In the Observer, Wendy Ide described the film as "Wim Wenders’s zen meditation on beauty, fulfilment and simplicity… it’s an achingly lovely and unexpectedly life-affirming picture. It all depends – and this is central to the film’s gently profound message – on your way of looking at things. Hirayama looks at the world with his eyes, but sees with his heart.”

Perfect Days subtitled, and is 2 hours 4 minutes long.