Hirayama is not a hero. He is not an allegorical figure who represents the plight of everyman. He is a plain individual, singular in his simplicity, ordinary by all measures. Yet in living his mundane life, we see the quiet dignity of someone who marvels at the splendour of each day.
Wim Wenders, (Paris, Texas and The Buena Vista Social Club) sets the film in Tokyo, a bustling metropolis where contemporary architecture meets the minimalist attitude of ancient Japan. The imaginative designs of the public toilets become the backdrop for an unassuming protagonist. Hirayama, a janitor who cleans the public toilets, lives a life of quiet solitude. He wakes up in the morning, waters his plants, leaves the house. A can of coffee from a vending machine sends him to his task. Enjoying the music of decades past, he drives his old van to public parks around Tokyo, where he scrubs the toilets and picks up detritus. On his lunch break, he admires the trees and takes photos of the canvas above him. After work, he visits a public bath. He dines at a small eatery, falls asleep reading books that he buys at the local bookstore. The film takes us through his days, providing a glimpse of a man who lives with ease. His routines are fixed, but never stiff. We sense a softness in his regularity.
Hirayam is an anachronistic figure. He uses a film-camera and develops his photos on the weekends. He listens to cassette tapes in his car. He carries a flip phone. He buys books for 100 yen (roughly a dollar CAD). However, he is not a bitter luddite protesting the tyranny of technology, nor a cynical ascetic raging against rampant consumerism. He does not practice religious piety. Instead, the trappings of modernity seem to slip off his care-free shoulders. Everything he does is touched by the sweetness of contentment. He opens the door and smiles at the sky, with all its promise and possibility. The spacious sky is not above him, it is in him.
Hirayma goes about his work with meticulous care. Ritualistic devotion enriches each task. He scrubs each toilet to a shine, checks the rear with a mirror to make sure that no spot is missed. In this careful execution, he discovers amusing surprises. A piece of paper stuffed in a crevasse becomes a game of tic-tac-to with an anonymous stranger. He observes and acknowledges the man who sleeps in the park. These are the subtle delights that brighten his days, the gifts that lurk in every ordinary moment.
Like most of us, Hirayama must deal with annoyances and heart ache. His irascible colleague tries to sell his cassette tapes without his consent, and then quits without prior notice. His sister arrives to pick up his niece, thus evoking a painful past that is never fully revealed to the audience. In the last scene, Hirayama drives into the glare of the sun, his face brimming with laughter and tears. A day is perfect not because it contains no pain, but because it contains joy and pain both, and is therefore whole and complete.
Simplicity is not something to attain, another anxious project that spins us into frenzy. It’s not about journeying far to obtain something elusive. It is about coming home, settling into what is already at hand. No valiant effort is required. Look at the trees, admire the clouds. In its own way, each moment is always perfect. Nothing else is required.
This is so beautiful! ðŸ˜