If your family is getting to you this Christmas, allow renowned German director Wim Wenders’s zen Japanese toilet drama whisk you away to a better place.Kōji Yakusho stars in Perfect Days, a film about beauty, fulfilment and simplicity and will leave you feeling way better about the human race than It’s A Wonderful Life. In this episode of the 12 Days of Christmas Binge Watch series, Jacob Stolworthy talks you through his reasons why it’s one of his picks of 2024.Watch Binge Watch on Independent TV.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a toilet cleaner character study.
00:04Now if you heard that, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
00:08For those of you who haven't, you need to check out Vin Benders' Perfect Days,
00:12which is one of the most pleasant films you'll watch this year.
00:30Because you're watching this film and the character is a toilet cleaner who goes about his life in Tokyo
00:36and he lives his routine over and over and over again.
00:38And one of the routines, he works as a toilet cleaner.
00:40So there's all these scenes of him cleaning toilets
00:43and it's the most calming thing you'll have seen that week.
00:47Koji Yakusho plays a lead character and he is one of my favourite performers of the year.
00:52I think just seeing this character live his routine over and over
00:55sounds like it might make for a boring film.
00:57So people who are more less casual film watchers.
01:00But what it actually is, is a beautiful character study from a director
01:02who's still working top of his game after many decades.
01:05You know, Vin Benders, he directed films like Paris, Texas, Alice in the Cities, Kings of the Road.
01:10And now he's just released something that's just as good as those classic films.
01:14And I think what I love about Perfect Days is that when I watched it,
01:17I was feeling stressed out and I instantaneously, as I was watching it,
01:21just felt way less stress.
01:24It was very therapeutic.
01:25And I know a lot of people who, they finished it and they watched it again that night or the next day.
01:29And I did that as well and I loved it just as much.
01:38So at Christmas time, it's a time where a lot is going on.
01:41You've got family members you might not actually like.
01:43Having to deal with them, when they go to bed, you can just put on Perfect Days
01:46and you can just forget about all your troubles.
01:48And you can do it twice and three times and you'll still enjoy it just as much.
01:51It's on MUBI.
01:52So hey, thank me later.