The 2024 Oscar and the poetics of a bathroom cleaner: Wim Wenders tells us about “Perfect Days” | INTERVIEW

The importance of bathrooms in Japan is not new. We can trace it in a beautiful book like “The Praise of Shadow” by Junichiro Tanizaki, in which its cultural and aesthetic relevance stands out; or even in contemporary toilets, modern devices full of buttons, like something out of a science fiction film.

Adding to this curious health genealogy is the film “Perfect Days”: is the story of a man who works cleaning public toilets in Tokyo. He enjoys his job, he does it with care and patience. And in his free time from his routine he listens to music on cassettes, takes photos of nature with a small analog camera, and reads books before going to sleep. The perfect days of a frugal life.

It’s a Japanese film, but it’s directed by a German. The maestro Wim Wenders (Dusseldorf, 1945), creator of memorable fictions such as “Paris, Texas”, “The Sky Over Berlin” or “So Far, So Close”, and documentaries such as “Buena Vista Social Club” and “Pina”. At 78 years old, Wenders has managed to get “Perfect Days” nominated for an Oscar for best international film. A day before this news broke, the filmmaker spoke with Trade in a round table with three other Latin American media. And he already outlined the possibility of a nomination.

“If they nominate me, I will be especially happy for my Japanese friends,” Wenders confessed in the conversation. And I will be happy to be nominated representing Yasujiro Ozu’s country… But I must admit that my life would be easier and happier if I didn’t get nominated. because I could finally stay at home without having to travel [risas]”.

In that respect, today’s Wenders is very similar to the protagonist of his film, Hirayama. Both exhibit a calm tranquility, a special inclination for the most delicate and peaceful aspects of life.

THE PERFECT DAYS

Wenders says that a few years ago he traveled to Tokyo for a proposal to make a series of short films about architecture in the Japanese capital. After observing the work, An unexpected thing fascinated him: public baths. “That inspired me to tell a story, because I felt there was something much bigger behind these places. “I love the feeling of common good in Japan, its love for small things,” says the German director.

“It is a film that was born in Tokyo, from encounters with different places, and that is why it could not have been made anywhere else in the world. All my films start with a place. I like to think of stories that can only occur in a certain place, but that then cross its limits. That it is this specific is the only condition so that it can later become universal,” he explains.

At the same time, Wenders comments that in recent years he has met people in different parts of the world who strive to live with less. “They are like members of the same club. If they can’t put everything that belongs to them in a briefcase, they can’t be part of the club. They are people who have learned to live with the essentials. Reduction is an important part of your self-definition,” she says. And that is where the character of Hirayama is born, who takes his name from one of the characters in “Tokyo Stories” by Ozu, a reference filmmaker for Wenders.

ABOUT THE SIMPLE

The person who plays Hirayama in “Perfect Days” is the Japanese actor Koji Yakusho (Nagasaki, 1956). For this role, he won the award for best male performance at the Cannes Film Festival. “When I decided to make the film, I knew I just needed a good script and a good actor.”. And I suggested Koji because he believed that there was no better actor than him on the entire planet. He had seen several of his films, from ‘Shall We Dance?’ until ‘Babel’, and I always thought that one day I should work with him. Until this opportunity arose,” says Wenders.

With very few lines of dialogue and minimal expressiveness but latent emotion, Yakusho takes the film on his shoulders. “Hirayama is a man who probably led a different life before,” explains Wenders about the character’s past, which is never revealed. You sense that when his sister comes to see him in a fancy car and she can’t believe he lives in that poor neighborhood, and she even asks him in a whisper ‘do you really clean toilets?’. There you realize that he has made a life choice. Hirayama is a master in the art of ‘less is more.’”

The protagonist reads Faulkner, Aya Koda, Patricia Highsmith, but only one book a week. He also always buys a single roll of photos, not a camera with 10,000 shots available. And in that Wenders also finds a parallel with his own current situation. “Hirayama devotes his attention to one thing, and then another, and another. He doesn’t choose to have it all. The digital world, on the other hand, offers us all the options. And that’s one of the reasons why we’re all so inundated with information, going crazy.. I’m sure there are people who can live with it, but I can’t. That’s why I removed the television from my house. That’s why now I only listen to records, and not platforms; “I don’t want an algorithm to choose the music for me,” she admits.

And that desire for detachment and simplicity also led him to the filming of the film: “When we recorded in Hirayama’s apartment, we only had him, his futon, his books and a small table with his plants. We were going to record all of this with a lot of technical equipment, sophisticated devices, a Steadycam… but I realized that we could also apply Hirayama’s philosophy. And then I reduced everything to a minimum: my cinematographer with his camera on his shoulder. Nothing else. And all that made us freer. We shot the film in a record time of 17 days.”

If Hirayama has his perfect days, what are the perfect days for Wim Wenders? “A perfect day is one in which I can choose what I want to do,” the director acknowledges. Being able to read at least one chapter of a book without falling asleep. Being able to listen to music on my favorite furniture. Being able to walk in nature and feel like I don’t miss anything about the city. I must say that all this is something that, Today, it happens to me a lot more than before making this film. So we can all learn.”