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