Samurai of the loo

In Perfect Days (2023), Wim Wenders achieves the seemingly impossible. With the help of The Tokyo Toilet project and through the depiction of an antihero-hero, he crafts the ethos of a toilet cleaner.

When I returned from my trip to Tokyo in early spring last year, I brought back so many ideas and insights that they still occupy my mind a year and a half later. Two aspects of the trip par­ti­cu­lar­ly impressed me, both of which I was tho­rough­ly unpre­pa­red for. In every bar I visited, people were smoking. Yet outside the bars, espe­cial­ly in the lively enter­tain­ment districts, there were frequent signs stating: “No smoking on the streets.” Though I usually consider myself a non-smoker, I immedia­te­ly bought a pack of Mevius and, for the first time in 15 years, I lit a cigarette inside a bar. The only reason I could fathom for the outdoor smoking ban seemed to be the avoidance of cigarette butts on the street, combined with Japan’s acclaimed high standards of cleanliness.

The second striking feature also relates to  clean­li­ness and hygiene. I don’t know any other megacity, espe­cial­ly one with over 10 million residents, where public restrooms are available in suf­fi­ci­ent numbers, are all impec­ca­b­ly clean, and, on top of that, free of charge. Every metro station, every park, every square has its own unique toilet “temple”.

While I didn’t visit the archi­tec­tu­ral gems of public restrooms portrayed in Wim Wenders’ latest film Perfect Days (2023) — funded by Nippon Foundation’s The Tokyo Toilet project — their existence in the film didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me, however, was the way Wenders portrayed Hirayama, a man in his fifties who works as a humble toilet cleaner in Toyko. The calmness and dedi­ca­ti­on that Hirayama (played by Koji Yakusho) brings to his work are extra­or­di­na­ry. A com­pa­ra­ble level of com­mit­ment to their tasks, I have only ever seen exhibited in The Samurai (Alain Delon, Le Samouraï, 1967), and perhaps The Bride (Uma Thurman) in Kill Bill (2003). But unlike them, Hirayama is on no revenge mission. A toilet brush replaces the katana, and the only fight scene is limited to boxing with shadows at night under a streetlight.

The film follows Hirayama through his daily routine: waking up, getting ready, getting dressed, loading up his emble­ma­tic Japanese mini-truck, cleaning one toilet, driving to the next (while listening to American pop music on cassette), cleaning another, and after work, visiting the bathhouse. Hirayama carries out his work with complete self-orga­niz­a­ti­on, respon­si­bi­li­ty, and dignity.

Wenders places special emphasis on Hirayama‘s breaks. At lunch in the park, Hirayama eats his sandwich while appre­cia­ting the “Komorebi” — the sunlight filtering through the tree leaves—and captures par­ti­cu­lar­ly beautiful moments of this light with an old pocket camera.

The delicate story that unfolds between Hira­ya­ma’s routines, quietly revealing something about his back­ground; Koji Yakusho’s nuanced per­for­mance; and the masterful yet subtle direction have been widely praised in various reviews. Yet, what fasci­na­tes me most is how Wenders elevates an entire pro­fes­si­on — the cleaning services. Hirayama, who barely speaks more than three sentences throughout the film, effec­tively embodying the solitary samurai of the cleaning world. To unders­core his uni­queness, Wenders contrasts Hirayama with Takashi (Tokio Emoto), a young, immature, and lazy worker for whom Hirayama often has to step in or clean up after. In his complete neglect and apathy for the job, Takashi repres­ents the “standard.” After all, who enjoys cleaning to toilets? As in classic cliché Westerns — and in classic cliché Chinese Westerns too — this dynamic of two polarized cha­rac­ters empha­si­zes the excep­tio­na­lism of the hero. But who is the hero here, then? The avenger of the poor, the oppressed, the tormented, or the murdered?

The hero is a simple worker in the least desirable, lowest-paid segment of the cleaning industry. (Note from employ­ment sta­tis­tics: cleaning work is pre­do­mi­nant­ly done by women part-time). His heroism lies in his humanity, his awareness of his dignity despite the external circumstances.

The cinematic, internal elements that elevate the role of the toilet cleaner include a hero in the form of an antihero, who lives modestly, speaks little, listens to tapes, reads used books, pho­to­graphs light filtering through treetops while having no explicit mission and remaining untrig­ge­red by ever­ything. He does his work tho­rough­ly, con­sci­en­tious­ly, and always humbly. The work-related, external factors that elevated the profile of cleaning services are, on the one hand: a mea­ning­ful but achiev­a­ble task, serving societal needs, and a high degree of autonomy. On the other hand it’s an appealing work envi­ron­ment with favoura­ble con­di­ti­ons. The former is a matter of work orga­niz­a­ti­on, the latter a matter of archi­tec­tu­re. Both are a matter of the respect we afford to certain professions.

City governments in other major cities could follow the example of The Tokyo Toilet, which co-financed the film, by providing free, clean, aes­the­ti­cal­ly pleasing public restrooms in suf­fi­ci­ent numbers and ensuring decent working con­di­ti­ons for those who maintain them.