Hirayama, the protagonist of Wim Wenders' new film "Perfect Days," is a man of strict routines.

Rising every day before dawn, he carefully trims his mustache, lovingly waters his plants (dug from the grounds of a nearby shrine), climbs into his old van and drives to work. On the way he listens to a cassette from his extensive collection of ‘60s and ‘70s rock classics (The Rolling Stones, Otis Redding, the Kinks and, of course, given the film's title, Lou Reed).

Hirayama's job is cleaning the public restrooms in Toyko's Shibuya district. His work — all the scrubbing, sponging, brushing and mopping — isn't glamorous but it is an important service, and Hirayama, played with effortless cool dignity by Japanese screen legend Yakusho Koji, goes about it with the same consciousness and careful attention to detail we see in every moment of his day. 

The toilets themselves are, frankly, beautiful. One is bright white dome, like a landed spaceship. Another resembles a labyrinth of wooden planks. One has brightly colored, but transparent walls. When an American woman, clearly confused, asks how it works, Hirayama, without a word, slips inside and locks the door. The glass turns opaque.

The Tokyo Toilet Project

Every one of the buildings featured in "Perfect Days" is an actual public toilet, part of an architecture project to renovate the facilities in Tokyo's Shibuya ward.

When the Nippon Foundation started the Tokyo Toilet Project in 2018, it was, says project coordinator Yamada Akiko, to counter the image of public toilets as "dark, dirty, smelly and scary."

Some of the country's leading architects, including Ban Shigeru, winner of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize, and Kengo Kuma, the award-winning designer of the V&A Dundee museum, reinvented the idea of the public toilet with advanced designs for 17 WCs in the Shibuya area, created not just to be works of art but also structured to be accessible for everyone "regardless of gender, age or disability."

More than just a public service, the project is a "way of moving toward the realization of a society that embraces diversity," says the Nippon Foundation. 

The Shibuya district contacted Wim Wenders, asking if he would make a documentary about the project. Wenders has a long and intimate connection to Japan. The German director cites "Tokyo-Story" (1953) from Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu as one of main reasons he became a filmmaker.  In 1985, he made a documentary on Ozu, "Tokyo-Ga." Four years later, he made "Notebook on Cities and Clothes," another Japanese-set documentary, about fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto. 

Japanese toilet culture

But for Wenders, the Tokyo Toilet Project was about more than architecture, it was about something deep in Japanese culture. Instead of a documentary, he decided to make a feature drama with the Tokyo Toilet Project at its core. 

"On the one hand [there is] the strong feeling of 'service' and 'the common good' in Japan," Wenders said in a recent interview. "On the other hand, the sheer architectural beauty of these public sanitary places. I was amazed at how much 'toilets' can be part of everyday culture, not just an almost embarrassing necessity."

There is undoubtably something unique about Japan's toilet culture. Public toilets in Tokyo are ubiquitous. The city has 53 public WCs per 100,000 residents.

Berlin, which recently doubled the number of available facilities, still has just 11.5 per 100,000 people.

Even the most humble public facilities in Japanese gas stations or fast food restaurants are a wonder of fastidious hygiene. The country is the world leader in toilet high-tech, with washlets typically including heated seats, built-in bidets with jets to wash and dry users bottoms, automated flushing and, often, a choice of music to mask toilet noises.

Toto, the country's leading toilet manufacturer (and a partner in the Tokyo Toilet Project) has its own museum dedicated to the history of the ceramic flush toilet. 

Public bathrooms as cultural metaphor

For Wenders, Tokyo's toilets express something unique, and deeply admirable, about Japanese culture. A drama about a Berlin toilet cleaner, one imagines, would be a grim affair. But "Perfect Days" is actually closer to a Zen meditation on the pleasures of the simple life.

Hirayama is like a modern-day monk; his daily rituals a form of spiritual meditation. Every day, he eats his lunch on the same bench in a temple garden, and takes a photograph (with an analog camera) of the same patch of light through the treetops.

In an interview, Yakusho Kaji has said the film, co-written by Wenders and Japanese screenwriter Takuma Takasaki, is based on the Japanese concept of komorebi, a word which describes the play of light and shadow through the leaves of a tree, where every shimmering moment is precious and unique.

The depiction is idealized, but it isn't naive. There is conflict. When Hirayama’s carefully-balanced routine is disrupted —at one point he is forced to do a double shift to cover for another cleaner who quit without warning — he loses his cool in a rare angry outburst.

A short scene with his estranged sister hints at a childhood trauma Hirayama is trying to escape.

"Perfect Days" is not some panglossian new age pap but a tender contemplation of the rewards and regrets of a flawed life (is there any other kind?), lived in a conscious and considered manner. 

Toilets as tourist attractions

It has certainly won over audiences. "Perfect Days" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where Yakusho Koji took the award for best actor. Japan picked the film as its official entry for the 2024 Oscars in the best international feature category, a rare honor for a non-Japanese director. 

The Tokyo Toilet Project has been similarly successful.

According to a survey by the Nippon Foundation, satisfaction among users of the 17 redesigned facilities has shot up from 44% to nearly 90%, and the number of people with negative views of public toilets shrank from 30% to just 3%.

"People who previously didn't give much thought to public toilets have started to take an interest in the facilities," said Nippon Foundation Executive Director Sasakawa Junpei. Thanks in part to "Perfect Days," the toilets are becoming tourist attractions in their own right.

Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier