Perfect Days

A closer look at the story

Hirayama is a quiet man who cleans public toilets in Tokyo, and he is perfectly content with his life. Each of his days follows a carefully established routine: he gets up early, goes to work and carries out his tasks with great care. In the moments outside this simple routine, he pursues his small passions: old songs he listens to on cassette, the books he reads and the photographs in which he tries to capture the light filtering through the leaves of trees. A series of unexpected encounters, however, leads Hirayama to reconnect with his past, and the calm order of his life slowly begins to be shaken. These encounters give him the chance to reflect on what it means to find beauty in the world. Directed by Wim Wenders, who wrote it with Takuma Takasaki, this 124-minute 2023 German-Japanese drama stars Koji Yakusho as Hirayama.