Wim Wenders’ 2023 film Perfect Days offers a beautiful, contemplative glimpse into a man’s ordinary and seemingly dull life. The film, which covers only a few days, features a Japanese man named Hirayama (played by Kōji Yakusho) living in Tokyo who cleans public toilets for a living. For much of the film, we simply witness Hirayama go about his unremarkable day: waking up early in his small apartment, tending to his quaint collection of plants, diligently cleaning public restrooms throughout Tokyo, and eating a routine dinner at a restaurant. His day is structured and ritualistic: He gets up at the same time, purchases the exact same iced coffee drink from a vending machine every morning, listens to songs from the same cassettes on his drive to work (one of these songs is Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day,” from which the film derives its title), cleans the same series of public restrooms, and so on.
Yakusho does a masterful job of conveying the character’s humanity and depth with very little dialogue. Much of the movie’s appeal is observing Hirayama’s otherworldly peace and good-natured ease as well as the meticulous and orderly way he goes about completing his various tasks. Despite the seemingly rote and mundane tenor of his days, Hirayama possesses a contemplative contentment. He reads literature, enjoys a rich collection of music, regularly takes photos of sunlight falling through leaves (something known as “komorebi,” which translates to the filtering of sunlight through trees), and notices the laughter of children playing or the splash of light reflecting off tile. He has an artist’s eye, observing minor instances of beauty throughout his day despite, again, living a seemingly boring and limited life. In other words, though he lives a life that by any worldly account would be considered lonely, unsuccessful, even tragic, he seems happy. Wenders’s film skillfully reveals how a life that, on the surface, appears forgettable and purposeless can in reality be extraordinarily rich and vibrant.
We can trust in faith that Christ, the divine artist, will reveal how even the smallest acts of our lives contributed to the masterwork of our lives in heaven.
Eventually, Hirayama’s teenage niece shows up unexpectedly at his apartment. She has run away from home because of a disagreement with her mother (Hirayama’s sister). She insists on accompanying her uncle to work and spending the day with him, and while Hirayama is hesitant to be pulled out of his comfortable routine at first, he experiences joy in being able to share the typical components of his day with his niece. We learn that Hirayama and his sister have had a falling out (the details are never provided), and gradually we realize that Hirayama harbors his own regrets, disappointments, and pain. When his sister arrives at his apartment to pick up his niece, it is clear that they have not seen each other in many years (she asks him whether he is really cleaning toilets for a living, obviously unaware of even the most obvious details of his life, to which he nods with a certain reserved pride). You can feel the loss and pain hanging between them, and after they hug, we’re left with a closeup of Hirayama weeping.
The film does not sentimentalize Hirayama’s life. On one hand, he lives a beautiful and rich life but one with its share of pain, brokenness, and loneliness. We see a man whose life contains beauty and tragedy, an authentic and realistic mix of joy and grief. That we learn little about the specific details of Hirayama’s life is what makes the film so profound: The details don’t matter, and what does is the human effort of trying to live a life worth living—a life of beauty and contemplation—despite existing in a world replete with pain, regret, and suffering. The final scene of the movie is extraordinarily powerful and, again, a testament to Yakusho’s talent. As Hirayama drives to work, beginning yet another routine day, a vast litany of emotions flicker across his face—joy, hope, sadness, regret, longing—and we witness the intricate beauty and wonder of a single living soul.
The film is deeply Christian, even if not explicitly so (like the vast majority of Japanese people, Hirayama is not himself a Christian). As I watched it, I was reminded of Pope Leo XIV’s beloved spiritual work, The Practice of the Presence of God. That book details the spiritual wisdom of a Carmelite friar, Brother Lawrence, who served as a cook in a monastery during the seventeenth century. The modest book illuminates how we can embrace regular prayer throughout the day by living in accord with God’s grace and consecrating all of our day’s duties, pleasures, recreation, and sufferings to him. It offers one way of approaching St. Paul’s exhortation: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). We read, “Our actions should unite us with God when we are involved in our daily activities, just as our prayers unite us with Him in our quiet devotions.”
One of Hirayama’s primary virtues is the care he affords to cleaning public restrooms. He works hard and cleans thoroughly. At one point, his younger, lazy coworker asks him why he is cleaning so diligently when the restroom is just going to get dirty again. He doesn’t respond to him but rather lives out his response by working carefully and even pleasantly, conveying the dignity of human work through action rather than word. His hard work will not accrue him more money or material success. He is not working hard to “impress” his coworker or anyone else—certainly not to gain a promotion (he has intentionally chosen this lowly profession, it seems, precisely to escape his former life of wealth and status). He does it only for the reason that it is noble and good to work well in and of itself. He embraces what Brother Lawrence instructs us to do:
Rather, he gave each chore the time that it required, always preserving his modest and tranquil air, working neither slowly nor swiftly, dwelling in calmness of soul and unalterable peace.
The film also reminded me of Pope John Paul II’s Letter to Artists. In the short but illuminating letter, the saint explains, “Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.”
This sounds appropriately poetic for such a letter, but it can be hard to understand what this means in practice, especially if we feel that our lives are mundane and ordinary. How do we, exactly, make a work of art out of our lives? How can the ordinary things we do—answering emails, cleaning out a garage, emptying a dishwasher, enduring traffic on our commute—allow us an opportunity to contribute to the beauty of our souls and lives? I don’t know, exactly. But since Christ has redeemed human activity, when we simply trust that what we do, when offered up to him, is meaningful it becomes so by his grace and power. And we can trust in faith that Christ, the divine artist, will reveal how even the smallest acts of our lives contributed to the masterwork of our lives in heaven.
Lastly, I think the film reminds us of the importance of training ourselves to be open to the beauty in our midst. We give God great honor when we see and appreciate even the slightest aspect of his creation. Hirayama may not be a saint, but he regularly seeks to encounter beauty throughout his day, and in seeking it, he finds it. It is easy to remain blind to the things around us and to live out our days on autopilot, thereby missing opportunities to be drawn out of the malaise of our weeks. Obviously, some days, no matter how hard we try to see beauty around us or embrace our duties with a certain contemplative spirit, we will still feel restless or tired or uninspired. Such is the state of things in a fallen world. However, the more we attempt to attune ourselves to living in a contemplative manner so that we can encounter the small beauties that point to Beauty itself, the more we will come to experience the sweetness of life that Brother Lawrence came to know so well: “There is no sweeter manner of living in the world than continuous communion with God. Only those who have experienced it can understand.”