Book Club: Perfect Days + introduction with Penguin Classics
PG 140 mins
PG 140 mins
To celebrate the release of Aya Koda's Tree – a beloved Japanese book translated into English for the first time – we're teaming up with Penguin Classics for a special screening of Wim Wenders' Perfect Days. You'll enjoy an introduction from Penguin's Hana Teraie-Wood, Senior Commissioning Editor, and get a copy of Tree to take home.
Tree appears in Perfect Days through the eyes of its well-read protagonist – just one part of the film's richly rewarding portrait of Japanese life.
Perfect Days follows Hirayama (Koji Yashuko) who lives a life of blissful contentment, balancing days as a caretaker of Tokyo’s public toilets with his passion for music, literature, and photography. His structured routine is slowly interrupted by unexpected encounters that force him to reconnect with his past.
Part of Picturehouse's Book Club: bringing your bookshelf to the big screen. Join us for curated screenings and events, conversations with literary minds, and more.
ABOUT TREE
Ezo spruce, hinoki, cherry blossoms. Persimmon, maple, cypress. The trees of Japan cast a spell on those who visit its landscape. But as a child, writer Aya Koda realized they were more than objects of beauty. Gifted a sapling by her father, she learned that we depend on trees as much as they do on us – and spent a lifetime trying to understand them.
Mesmerising and poignant, Tree is written in a Japanese genre called zuihitsu, which means ‘following the brush’. Here we follow Aya Koda on a journey to discover Japan’s most remarkable trees. As she witnesses landslides and forests of falling ash, she encounters fresh saplings and ancient, ungovernable roots, learning how each tree contains its own unique story.