Perfect Days

Perfect Days (2023) ~ The Man Who Sublimated Too Well Freud said the healthiest way to deal with repressed desires is sublimation—turning all that bottled-up angst into something productive. Most people channel it into art, work, or obsessively organizing their spice rack. Hirayama? He chose public toilets. And let’s be honest, no one is this content scrubbing urinals unless they’re suppressing something. His life is so structured, so meticulously peaceful, that it almost feels aggressive. He wakes up, folds his blanket like it personally wronged him, listens to oldies on cassette tapes (because digital music would be too emotionally available), and finds borderline religious fulfillment in bathroom maintenance. It’s admirable. It’s unsettling. It’s also suspiciously well-adjusted. Because here’s the thing—Hirayama wasn’t always a zen master with a mop. His wealthy niece and estranged sister give us glimpses of a past life. Money was there. Status was there. But he walked away from it. Why? Did he reject capitalism? Escape a family drama too exhausting to untangle? Commit a crime and go full Tokyo Bresson? The movie never tells us, and that silence is deafening. Instead, we get rituals. He plants tree saplings—not in a casual, “gardening is fun” way, but in a this is my replacement for human relationships way. Trees grow slowly. They don’t disappoint you. Unlike people, they don’t need explanations or closure. He takes film photos, but never of people—only static objects, shadows, and the city’s quiet corners. He’s capturing time without participating in it, freezing moments so they can never change. Freud would call this an obsession with the fort-da game—the compulsion to make things disappear and reappear on one’s own terms. And then, the toilets. Oh, the toilets. Wenders films them like sacred shrines, pristine and glowing. But let’s psychoanalyze for a second: a toilet is a place of elimination. It exists to remove things, to take what’s unwanted and make it disappear. And here’s Hirayama, dedicating his life to scrubbing away filth, as if erasing something over and over. A past? A guilt? A self? Then we get that final scene. “Perfect Day” plays, and for the first time, the man who’s been so composed, so disciplined, lets something slip. His face twitches, his breathing changes. And in that tiny moment, it hits: this isn’t about running from life or mastering it. It’s about sitting with it. No escape, no avoidance, just existing. And somehow, that makes it even more devastating. Also, if anyone ever asks what my dream job is, I might just start saying public toilet philosopher. ★★★★★