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Beautiful film about how the contradictions and difficulties in our relationships with other people (friends, family, lovers, etc), are actually what we should feel the most blessed for.
Told in a contemplative and picturesque way.
Jan 9, 2025
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Jan 25, 2024
What a lovely little shadowbox of a film.
The plot concerns a quiet man, Hirayama, who works as a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo's Shibuya ward. And his highly structured, routinized way of living both on the job as well as his leisure time pursuits (his passion for music, played mostly on vintage cassettes in his van throughout the movie; nature photography done the old-fashioned analog way; and reading the works of authors such as Faulkner and Aya Koda). There are some scenes that are highly reminiscent of the way that Sofia Coppola depicted Tokyo in "Lost in Translation" - dreamy, impressionistic, focused on images of beauty and human emotion vs. script that "moves the plot along."
Tokyo is one of my favorite places in the world and it's reminding me I need to get back there soon.
PS: Uncle Lou Reed would have been very proud of this film had he lived to see it.
PPS: Boy is Koji Yakusho amazing in the lead role. No wonder he won best actor at Cannes last year for this performance.
Apr 11, 2024
Ok, it’s about a Tokyo toilet cleaner. And he barely speaks. But bear with me.
It’s a film that is luminous with beauty from a director nearing the end of his life (Wim Wenders is in his eighties.) And it says so much about what is important in life, and what isn’t …
Relinquishing complication, I think, is the key. Plus the quietness of simplicity. And the ability to cleave to a simple life - if you possibly can. And having the courage to be singular; to not care what others think of you (the ultimate freedom.)
Lessons, lessons, all the life lessons. I still think about the gift of this film, months after I was immersed in it.
I left the cinema … cleansed.
Feb 17, 2025
