From an opportunity to view architecturally daring, superbly engineered new public toilets in Tokyo, Germany’s famed filmmaker Wim Wenders ultimately emerged with an unlikely feature film: “Perfect Days,” one of five Oscar nominees in the Best International Feature category.

“I was shocked when the Japanese called me,” Wenders recalled of his Oscar nod. “They said, ‘Please sit down — you will not believe it!’

“That’s quite a responsibility all of a sudden for a non-Japanese. Then I realized the Japanese love Koji Yakusho” – the film’s star – “so much. He’s really a hero in Japan and he never won an international award until he won Best Actor at Cannes.  When he landed in Japan afterwards there were hundreds of people at the airport to receive him.

“He’s really very much loved. I realized that me being the director of the Japanese entry is due to him.”

“Perfect Days” asks:  How can someone who cleans toilets be so content with so little in a world that celebrates having always more and more?

None of this was even considered when Wenders visited Tokyo two years ago to see the Tokyo Toilet Project, a dozen plus public toilets conceived as an architectural showcase. The hope was that Wenders, a three-time Oscar nominee for his feature-length documentaries, would be inspired to make a series of shorts.

Wenders was astonished at these contemporary showcases. In a chilly post-COVID world, these are messages of public cheer.  He decided to make a fictional film, about a man who daily, meticulously, cleans these special toilets.

He cast one of Japan’s most beloved actors Yakusho (the 1996 rom-com “Shall We Dance”) as the monk-like Hirayama who lives simply in one-room in a working-class neighborhood and listens to rock classics of the ‘70s on original cassettes.

Hirayama, Wenders said, “loves working for others, loves living, enjoys the little he has.  In a strange way, he’s living a life that we could all learn from. We can learn from his approach to seeing the small things.

“He is able to be living in the moment, which is something we all try, only we get distracted so much.

“He’ll read a book — and only when it’s finished will he get one other one. He reads that until it’s finished and then he buys another one. The same with his music.

“He doesn’t have too much of everything, like we all do. In that regard, he is a great example of how to live after the pandemic. Let’s face it, the people on the planet should learn to live with less.”

“Perfect Days” is now playing at the Coolidge Corner Cinema.

Wim Wenders on the set of “Perfect Days.” (Photo courtesy NEON)