Perfect Days
When
Occurs on
Monday October 21 2024
Approximate running time: 2 hours
Venue
Event Notes
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Presented by Reel Alternatives Huntsville in partnership with Algonquin Theatre
Perfect Days
Nominated for the Best International Film Oscar, Perfect Days is a poignant character study and emotionally charged journey into the soul of Tokyo. Radiating with charm, this unique mix of fiction and ordinary life finds an unusual, poetic angle to guide us: the architectural marvels of some of Tokyo’s public toilets.
Kôji Yakusho plays Hirayama, a cleaner of these toilets. Hirayama lives alone in a small house full of plants, his days going by according to quiet rhythms that never seem to change. Hirayama speaks very little and has a great passion for music, books, and the trees he loves to photograph. He drives to work in his minivan, fully equipped with his cleaning gear, while The Rolling Stones, Patti Smith, or Lou Reed ring in ageless, husky hums from a tape player. His structured routine is slowly interrupted by unexpected encounters that force him to reconnect with his past.
As if in search of a new cinema on the road, director Wenders follows his protagonist and instead discovers new places of the heart, creating a deeply moving, poetic reflection on finding beauty in the everyday world around us.
Director: Wim Wenders
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese, English (very little dialogue)
Year: 2024
Duration: 124 minutes
Featuring: Kôji Yakusho, Min Tanaka, Tokio Emoto
Distributor: Elevation Pictures
Official Movie Trailer: Perfect Days
Trivia: The nine public-toilets featured in Perfect Days were built to help welcome visitors to Japan as part of the planned Summer Olympics in 2020. When the pandemic delayed the Olympics, a senior executive sought a way to still make the toilets known internationally, leading to the idea of having a well-known film director to produce a documentary about them. Given an invitation to produce the documentary, Wim Wenders decided to make a full-length movie instead.
Perfect Days
Nominated for the Best International Film Oscar, Perfect Days is a poignant character study and emotionally charged journey into the soul of Tokyo. Radiating with charm, this unique mix of fiction and ordinary life finds an unusual, poetic angle to guide us: the architectural marvels of some of Tokyo’s public toilets.
Kôji Yakusho plays Hirayama, a cleaner of these toilets. Hirayama lives alone in a small house full of plants, his days going by according to quiet rhythms that never seem to change. Hirayama speaks very little and has a great passion for music, books, and the trees he loves to photograph. He drives to work in his minivan, fully equipped with his cleaning gear, while The Rolling Stones, Patti Smith, or Lou Reed ring in ageless, husky hums from a tape player. His structured routine is slowly interrupted by unexpected encounters that force him to reconnect with his past.
As if in search of a new cinema on the road, director Wenders follows his protagonist and instead discovers new places of the heart, creating a deeply moving, poetic reflection on finding beauty in the everyday world around us.
Director: Wim Wenders
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese, English (very little dialogue)
Year: 2024
Duration: 124 minutes
Featuring: Kôji Yakusho, Min Tanaka, Tokio Emoto
Distributor: Elevation Pictures
Official Movie Trailer: Perfect Days
Trivia: The nine public-toilets featured in Perfect Days were built to help welcome visitors to Japan as part of the planned Summer Olympics in 2020. When the pandemic delayed the Olympics, a senior executive sought a way to still make the toilets known internationally, leading to the idea of having a well-known film director to produce a documentary about them. Given an invitation to produce the documentary, Wim Wenders decided to make a full-length movie instead.