Movie Review: Wim Wenders’ ‘Perfect Days’ is sublime

Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days” is set among the crowded skyscrapers of Tokyo and the quiet urban parks that Hirayama traverses daily in his job cleaning public toilets. Think of Harry Dean Stanton’s dusty drifter in “Paris, Texas,” or Bruno Ganz’s terminally ill man in “The American Friend.” But the Wenders’ movie that “Perfect Days” most recalls is “Wings of Desire,” where melancholy angels watched over Cold War-era Berlin and spoke of testifying “day by day for eternity.” “Perfect Days” has no such supernatural element, but its gaze is likewise attuned to what’s beautiful and meaningful in everyday living. “How can you put so much into a job like this?” says Takashi, Hirayama’s younger, less scrupulous coworker. That’s a great credit to Yakusho, the great Japanese actor, whose soulfulness fills the empty spaces of “Perfect Days.” It may sound like an art house enterprise but anyone could connect with Wenders’ film.