Birthed from a short-film project intended to celebrate The Tokyo Toilet, the state-of-the-art public toilet system subject to the delight and fascination of tourists, is Wim Wenders and Takuma Takasaki’s Perfect Days (2023). The feature film, premiered at Cannes Film Festival and screened at Melbourne International Film Festival, is an ode to the bittersweetness of a modest and simple life in urban Tokyo. We are plunged into the quaint routine Hirayama (Kōji Yakusho) practices, a toilet cleaner who approaches the task with as much meticulous delicacy as he does when tending to his sapling trees.

Perfect Days is a film of leisure, not throughout the narrative but in the way it lingers on actions and sequences that, at their surface, seem inconsequential. As the orange glow of a sunrise lights the frame, The Animals, The Velvet Underground, and Patti Smith, and of course Lou Reed, play, Hirayama’s routine becomes predictable, and we participate in comical encounters with strangers or the satisfaction of finding a noughts and crosses game reciprocated that each day brings. Even the cinematography reflects this consistency, with the same angles and frames given to each element of his routine, the camera eye level every time. I often found myself just watching passively, not searching for abstract meaning, just resonating with this sentimental exploration of Hirayama’s uncomplicated routine. Wenders does well to replicate the distinctly human experience of doing tasks with only the company of yourself.

One of the most visceral representations of this is Hirayama’s lunch hour. On his point-and-shoot film camera, he photographs the trees. Blurry, black and white images, lacking composition and capturing the glance of a human eye – such an uncomplicated interaction with the world, entirely free of curation. Wenders then introduces abstraction as these photographs, and others, reappear in hazy and indistinct dream sequences, and other characters create intrigue as they disrupt Hirayama’s peaceful isolation, as his younger and sporadic colleague asks pointed questions and the arrival of his niece Niko (Arisa Nakano) reveals more about his past and family, insinuating the peaceful isolation is a choice.

Wenders’ visceral storytelling brings the dichotomy of simple living to life, recreating the aloneness often a prerequisite to peace, and the balancing of the joy and sorrow that brings. Hirayama is undeniably connected to his life, but these connections rarely involve another human relationship beyond a familiar stranger or acquaintance. We are left to ponder on what a content life really looks like as the sun sets and Hirayama laughs and cries, with only the company of the next day, and the day after that.