Film Review: Tic-Tac-Toe in ‘Perfect Days’

Tic-tac-toe. Noughts and crosses. Xs and Os.

These are the names different people use to describe the same pencil-and-paper game.

A lot, yet very little happens in Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days, an affecting portrait of a public toilet janitor in Tokyo. Hirayama’s daily routine is almost perfectly clockwork: he wakes up to the sound of a neighbour sweeping, suits up in his “The Tokyo Toilet” uniform, and as he steps out of his door…he looks to the sky and heaves a happy sigh, regardless of how he is actually feeling.