May 12, 2022 (nagariknetwork.com) - Wim Wenders is making a film about high-end public toilets in Japan that will have what the renowned German director calls “social meaning” about people in modern cities.
The facilities were designed by leading architects including Kengo Kuma and Tadao Ando, with the idea that a pleasant public restroom could counter the common expectation it had to be filthy, filled with graffiti or associated with crime.
Wenders, the Oscar-winning director of “Wings of Desire” and “Buena Vista Social Club,” said when he saw the Shibuya bathrooms, he was moved.
“This is a truly precious place,” Wenders said.
And so his film’s hero will be a sanitation worker who cleans the toilets, seeing his job as a craft and a service for the people. Details of the script are still being worked out.
Koji Yakusho, known for playing the Japanese everyman in works like “Shall We Dance” and “Babel,” said he accepted the role as soon as it was offered because he wanted to work with Wenders.
The public restroom designed by Ando is round with frames for the exterior walls, to allow air to circulate. In real life it gets cleaned without water to avoid mold or decay by men in blue jumpsuits by Japanese fashion designer Nigo.
