Tokyo Sanitization: Wim Wenders’ <em>Perfect Days</em> and the Discourse of Public Cleanliness in Japan

Wen, Hao

Hao Wen

Hao Wen is a PhD student at the Nagoya University-University of Warwick Co- Tutelle PhD Programme in Global Screen Studies. He is also the co-founder and programmer of the Chinese-Japanese Women’s Film Exhibition in China. His research interests include the dynamic relationship between cinema and cities in Japan, Japanese independent cinema, and film festival culture in East Asia. His current project investigates the material and discursive constitution of Tokyo as a global city in the 1980s via cinema. He has been published in Ebisu: Études japonaises, Chinese Independent Cinema Observer, and Artforum China.

Deep Dives, no. 1, vol. 9April 8, 2024<April 8, 2024

Tokyo Sanitization: Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days and the Discourse of Public Cleanliness in Japan

Hao Wen

Perfect Days (Wim Wenders, 2023) was commissioned to promote the image of public hygiene as part of the Toyko Toilet project. Yet, as Hao Wen argues, the film develops a reflexive critique of the discourses of urban “cleanliness” in Japan.