Pay attention to the shadows in “Perfect Days.” Pay attention also to the trees, to the ways Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) looks at them. Hirayama cleans Tokyo’s public toilets for a living, rising before dawn to gently water the seedlings he grows in his home and then drive off to begin his shift. He keeps to a simple routine, the kind so carefully constructed you start to wonder if it’s a bulwark against chaos. They are anchors in time, companions throughout his days, riches rounding out his life. When he brings a book to the bar on the weekend, the proprietor tells him admiringly that he’s such an intellectual.

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Persons: Koji Yakusho, Hirayama, Van Morrison, Nina Simone —, stashed, ”