In Perfect Days, an aging restroom cleaner finds daily, fleeting moments of happiness through a mindful awareness of beauty in chance encounters and his temporal surroundings, yet can never truly hide a deep underlying sadness. Scars from the past? Employment that pushes one into a caste of invisible labor? Alienation in a rapidly changing, hyper individualist society?
I was concerned that Wim Wenders would delve into orientalist territory in trying to channel foregone Japanese aesthetic sensibilities, but the result is by all means a beautiful, heartbreaking masterpiece of contemporary Japanese cinema.