MOVIES

Plot

Hirayama works as a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo. He repeats his structured, ritualized life every day, starting at dawn. He dedicates his free time to his passion for music and to his books.
Hirayama is also very fond of trees and spends time gardening and photographing them. Hirayama's young assistant, Takashi, is often late, loud, and not as thorough. One day, a young woman named Aya stops by the public toilet Takashi is cleaning, so he hurries to finish. He tries to leave with Aya, but his scooter will not start, so he convinces Hirayama to let him use his van.
When Aya says Takashi can stay with her as she works at a girls bar, he complains loudly that he is broke. Takashi slips Hirayama's Patti Smith tape into Aya's purse. Takashi talks Hirayama into going into a shop to get some of his cassettes appraised. When Takashi discovers how valuable they are, he urges Hirayama to sell, but Hirayama refuses, giving him some cash so he can take out Aya.
Hirayama commences a tic-tac-toe game with a stranger. The game continues over the course of the film.
Aya catches up with Hirayama to return the Patti Smith cassette. She asks to play it in his van one last time, and then gives him a thank-you kiss on the cheek.
On his free day, Hirayama does his laundry, takes the film with his tree photos to be developed, cleans his flat, buys a new book, and dines out at a bar where the female proprietor shares gossip with him.
Niko, Hirayama's niece, shows up unannounced, having run away from his wealthy estranged sister Keiko's home. He lets Niko accompany him to work during the next two days. The two photograph the trees in the park and ride bikes together. Eventually, Keiko comes to pick up Niko.
Keiko tells him that their father’s dementia has worsened and asks whether Hirayama will visit him in the nursing home where he lives. Hirayama sorrowfully refuses but hugs his sister good-bye.
The next day, Takashi quits without giving notice, leaving Hirayama to cover his shift. Later, as Hirayama goes to his usual bar, he opens the door and sees the proprietress embracing a man. Hirayama hurries off, buying cigarettes and three canned highballs to consume at a nearby riverbank. The man Hirayama saw at the restaurant approaches and asks him for a cigarette. The man tells him the restaurant proprietress is his ex-wife whom he had not seen in seven years, and that she opened her restaurant the year after divorcing him. He says he visited her to make peace before he dies from cancer, telling Hirayama to look after her. Hirayama lightens the mood by offering him a drink and inviting him to play shadow tag, and they eventually part ways.
The following morning, Hirayama begins another workweek. As he drives his van he listens to Nina Simone sing "Feeling Good".