Wim Wenders
can't believe it, but yes, he is happy with the
Oscar nomination for best international film
for
Perfect Days , the film that sent Japan to compete in the category where
Argentina, 1985
did last year
.
The German director will tell in this interview with
Clarín
, exclusive for Argentina, how the committee decided to send it instead of to some other Japanese film.
Perfect Days
premieres on Thursday, February 8 in Argentina, after having its world premiere at the
Cannes Festival
last year.
There, its leading actor, Kôji Yakusho, won the award for best male performer.
He did it by playing a middle-aged, introverted man who
is dedicated to cleaning public toilets in Tokyo
.
The film follows him, and much of the film shows Hirayama meticulously doing his job, sometimes accompanied by his young assistant Takashi (Tokio Emoto) and listening to pop music cassettes while driving his truck.
Wim Wenders.
Cannes winner and one of the most recognized directors in the world.
Photo EFE
What follows are excerpts from the extensive interview we had with the director of
Paris, Texas
,
The Wings of Desire
and
The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty Kick
.
-How did your fascination with "bathroom culture" in Japan begin? And why did you consider it a great backdrop for a film? Because it's very unusual...
-Is unusual.
And it began as a lovely invitation to travel to Japan, and look.
I never thought in my life that I would travel somewhere to look at a bathroom
.
But these baths were special, because they were built by 15 great architects.
He was even friends with two of them, and they also built banks and stadiums, and now they built the smallest unit, a public toilet.
And I liked the idea.
So, I said, “I'm going to come as soon as the quarantine opens.”
And they told me “if she inspires you, we could think about doing it.
A series of small reports about the architect and his work and how they are received in Japan.”
Kôji Yakusho, in a scene from the Oscar candidate for best international film, "Perfect Days."
PHOTOS: MUBI / MACO
So I liked the idea.
I went there.
I love bathrooms, I thought they were tremendous.
But when it came to reporting on architects for their creations, I realized that I could really do something more urgent.
And more complete and more complex.
Since I had been invited to be inspired, my inspiration would be to tell a story, in which these bathrooms are the background, and the key figure is someone who takes care of these bathrooms.
And this way you could see the bathrooms, but it would be a true story.
Like getting stuck in a context, in an emotional context.
If you decide to make a documentary about the architects and their creations, there is not, there will not be any great emotion.
But let me tell you a story and it will be much better.
And even though I thought I was deterring myself from a good job, they liked my idea.
And before we knew it, they said, "Well, let's do it. But what do we need?"
I said, "We need a good script and we need a great actor."
And that was the beginning of production.
Wim Wenders joined together with Werner Herzog, Volker Schlöndorff and Rainer Fassbinder, something like the patronage of the so-called new German cinema.
Japanese actor Kôji Yakusho, with Wenders at the presentation of the film at Cannes 2023. Photo AFP
-This may seem crazy, but when watching "Perfect Days", I couldn't help but think about spirituality and your film “The Wings of Desire”. Do you think there are convergences between these two films? Like an invisible angel who does good to others...
-Well, it didn't cross my mind when we were making the film, but the further we got into filming, the more I realized it.
Kôji Yakusho was truly an extraordinary man.
And since he didn't talk as much, I realized how important his eyes were.
And in the end, that's what it's all about:
that he takes us into his world and that we begin to see what he is seeing
.
And we started thinking and listening to music with him.
Little by little we are entering into the vision of different areas of his life.
And that, of course, is very similar to the ark and the two angels from
The Wings of Desire
.
And we saw the world through the loving gaze of angels, and in this case
we see Tokyo through the loving gaze of this man
.
And his eyes are really his main tool.
He doesn't talk much, but he sees a lot.
So, that's my comparison.
And maybe instead of angels, he's a little more like Peter Falk, because Peter also loved simple things and he loved having a cup of coffee.
"'Perfect Days' has similarities to 'Wings of Desire,' Wenders told Clarín. Photo AFP
-Do you agree with me that you were inspired by the spirit of Yasujiro Ozu to tell the story of this particular toilet cleaner in Tokyo?
-Yes, we are based on Ozu and not so much in the way he made his films, but much more in the spiritual dimension and much more also in the spirit of his films.
And here Hirayama is very much a character in the spirit of all those characters.
And, frankly, his name is Hirayama because in
Tokyo Stories
(the film that Ozu filmed in 1953, ten years before his death) the character is called Hirayama, the same as in his last film,
An Autumn Afternoon
, which he made with the same actor.
Ozu made his favorite actor bear that name twice.
So we went to Japan in honor of Ozu.
And of course, this is sixty years after his death.
And it was this continuous search for the change of Japan, and 80 years after
Tokyo Stories
we again undertook a search for what has changed in the city.
And we made this film right after the pandemic, which had an impact that was nowhere more recorded than in Tokyo, because it had the longest lockdown of any major city in the world.
Kôji Yakusho, as the man who cleans public toilets in Tokyo, and Arisa Nakano in "Perfect Days".
And the way people came back after the lockdown in Tokyo was actually very endearing to me, because I saw the opposite happening in Europe, especially in my city of Berlin.
I saw that the confinement had a great victim, which was the sense of the common good, and in Tokyo it was the opposite.
It was almost as if the people were returning to take possession of the city
.
But even with a greater sense of care for what was common: parks, bathrooms and public life.
It was beautiful to see the respect they had for each other and their city.
That was why I rejected the initial idea of making several short films about bathrooms and architects, and suggested that there was something bigger to do and a bigger story to tell.
Three-time Oscar nominee
Wenders was a three-time Oscar nominee (for three documentaries, the first,
Buena Vista Social Club
), won the Palme d'Or at Cannes with
Paris, Texas
and presided over several international film festivals, until, at the 2008 Venice Film Festival, , due to discrepancies with the awards rules, decided to never participate in a Jury again.
-Returning to "The Wings of Desire", you have said that "Perfect Days" is probably the closest you have come to transmitting peace through a film, along with "The Wings of Desire". And today we live in a time when we have two major wars. Do you still think that cinema can change people's opinions about peace and violence?
-I believe that cinema has the power to change our perception.
Not to change the world, but our perception of the world.
Here we have a man and his perception of his work.
And there is a sense of self-worth, because he is doing a good job.
Not because he is rich, or because he has a lot in material things.
He is a very free man with a great sense of self-esteem.
And I think movies, if they can change anything, it's the way people see the world.
"Perfect Days" brings back the best of the director of "Paris, Texas."
I don't know how much can be done about current wars and I have never believed in explicitly political films, but I think
the mission is to start seeing the world with more calm and with more love
.
That would be a great mission for cinema and the way Hiroyama and
Perfect Days
are received right now in the countries where it is projected, Italy, Spain, Germany and France... They love what they see in it.
It gives me great hope that people know that cinema still has that power to change perception.
From Düseldorff and married five times
He was born in Düseldorff as Ernst Wilhelm Wenders, on August 14, 1945, the same day and the same year as Steve Martin.
He was married five times, with one peculiarity: he worked with each of his partners, at least in one film that he directed.
Tall, he measures 1.91 m., Something that is hidden on the computer screen in the Zoom that he maintained exclusively with
Clarín
de la Argentina.
Harry Dean Stanton in a scene from "Paris, Texas", with which Wenders won the Palme d'Or at Cannes 1984.
-A very simple question. What makes a day perfect for you? Is cinema perfectly involved in what you consider a perfect day?
-Not really.
Making films is a state of happiness, and it is always a short period in which you have a kind of very high consciousness, because from morning to night you are in the film.
We filmed
Perfect Days
in an incredibly short time of 17 days, and those 17 days, in my opinion, were just one day and were a greater awareness of Tokyo and the overall character of Hiroyama.
Doing is not that important in my daily life.
I learned a lot, and tried to be less distracted by other things.
And I try to be more defined by what I really need and like and what I want to do, and not by what things give me to do and what my mobile phone tells me, what the Internet wants to show me.
And I see more and more how much that is related to happiness or contentment.
And there is a whole generation, which I have seen first in New York, but now also in Berlin and other cities, of young people who almost compete with each other, who can get along with less.
Can you put everything you have in a suitcase?
Only then are you good.
And all these people have one thing in common.
They are very calm and collected, and have a good sense of self-esteem.
And I see a huge correlation between positions and things to do and things on your mind and your mental health.
"The Wings of Desire" (1987), one of Wenders' best films.
-How do you feel about representing Japan at the Oscars with your film? And I want to know how important the Oscars are to you.
-I have been there a couple of times, in fact three times with documentaries.
And of course then I represented Germany.
Being sent by the Japanese committee, knowing that in 2023 there were quite a few really good Japanese films, that they chose
Perfect Days
with a German director, and that this had never happened before, it was a shock to me.
But then I realized, they did it because they really recognized themselves in this character.
And Koji Yakusho is actually very, very loved in Japan.
So I accepted that I was Koji.
And since we made the film in the spirit of Ozu I thought, well, it's an honor to represent Japan.
And he was very proud.
And if we don't win it, it's not the worst thing either, because cinema is not based only on the Oscars.
Wim Wenders arrives at the Palis des festivals for the screening of "Perfect Days" alongside the protagonist Kôji Yakusho.
Photo EFE
-This is a film made of silences. How challenging is it to hold the audience's attention for two hours with all this silence at a time when we watch movies that are increasingly loud and full of effects and spectacle? How difficult is that?
-It is very difficult.
And when we started editing, I was very worried about that, that nothing would happen.
Not even the protagonist speaks for the first 20 minutes.
There is simply his routine and we are going to live in it.
And then I showed the movie for the first time to some friends of mine.
It was a preliminary assembly and I was surprised.
Well, it's a very convincing identity.
And it is his eyes that force you to stay with him.
And how he does everything as if it were the first time.
And from the beginning, he really lives in the moment.
And only later will he tell you that this is, so to speak, his philosophy.
Then I realized that I liked being drawn into that realm, and then I was less afraid of silence, and I was less afraid of nothing happening because I realized that it could awaken something to the people who saw it.
Wim Wenders.
The German director, born in Düsseldorff, has presented more films in Cannes than in Berlin.
AFP Photo
He studied medicine, philosophy and sociology before dedicating himself to cinema.
He is president of the European Academy of Film.
-There are people who make films with ethical and aesthetic commitment. What is your opinion on the present of European cinema?
-I think there are many excellent people working around the world.
Young people.
The hunger for reality-based cinema is everywhere.
And it can be seen in the success that that taste has at the moment.
It's not just action movies that draw people to theaters, but also movies that ask you for answers.
Really important questions.
How should we live?
And grammar gives its own answers to that question, how should we live?
And it remains a vital question in cinema, and I still think there are many filmmakers who are willing to answer that question.
And especially now after the pandemic, where I felt all the time “later we will make other films and we will have to define how we want to live.”
And well, so this didn't really happen, and life didn't seem to change that much.
And I was very disappointed that it seemed to have almost no consequences.
But now I see them slowly and I see that people long to change things in their lives, but also in the world.
"We were guided by the spirit of Ozu," says Wenders about the Japanese director whom he admires.
-How has Tokyo changed since you went to film, almost 40 years ago, "Tokio-Ga"?
-Well, I was a young man.
I was.
I'm 78 now and that was 40 years ago, I was almost more than half younger than I am now.
And I didn't know Tokyo that well.
We were two people.
My cameraman, Ed Lachman, and I, in the footsteps of Ozu.
Without a plan and without a real way to get into Tokyo and Japan.
We then discovered, with the help of some benevolent angels, that we were eventually connected to this cameraman.
And we finally did it, making a film about the spirit of Ozu.
But it took us a while and it was just searching, digging... And that was 20 years after Ozu died, and the city was just waking up.
Much of old Tokyo was still alive.
And none of the skyscrapers were there, and the city was still kind of asleep.
And from the late '80s to the '90s, it became science fiction and the world capital of technology, of devices.
So the vision for the future became a model for other cities.
And then, of course, we first had a big crash in the 21st century and then we slowly recovered.
And there is an economic recovery.
I still feel there is a heightened sense of togetherness and social solidarity.
And, of course, Tokyo has no problem with violence.
And you can leave your bike unlocked and you don't have to lock the door when you leave the house.
And your wife can go for a walk in the middle of the night.
And there is no need to fear for her, everything will be pleasant.
But of course, Tokyo has other signs:
people work too much, and many people feel too lonely
.
And it is probably the only city in the world, the only country with a ministry for loneliness.
So it has its drawbacks.
But I think it is also a great example of how to live and continue to exist as a social entity.
And the sense of the common good is still very, very present and, at least for me, it is uplifting.
With his partner, Donata Wenders.
She is his fifth wife.
Reuters Photo
-This is one of your two films premiered at Cannes last year. It is not small, at 78 years old. Do you feel a sense of urgency to continue telling the stories you still carry inside?
-I don't really look for the stories that I have inside me, I look for the stories that I find and that are presented to me.
And my themes, all, almost all, are united by a sense of place.
And for the urgency of connecting the place.
To a story that would only happen there and nowhere else, and the character would come out of the equation of place and story, and that would then form the character.
I knew I could tell a story that would only happen there, and that I was extremely interested in getting to know the place better.
Tokyo is one of my favorite places, and it was great to come back after more than ten years and see it again.
So.
And with
Anselm
, the other film he released last year, it was exactly the same.
I had known Anselm Kiefer for a long time, and he is an incredible artist, but it wasn't until I saw the artistic landscape of him territorially in the south of France that I realized it was a film I could handle.