Wim & vigour

Prolific German director Wim Wenders talks about how his acclaimed new film about the life of a Tokyo toilet janitor went from side project to awards contender.

- RUSSELL BAILLIE

Peering through his small blue spectacles, Wim Wenders looms in owlish close-up on the screen from his suite at the Sunset Marquis, the very rockstar hotel in West Hollywood. It might seem odd that the veteran German director, whose films include Paris, Texas, Wings of Desire and Buena Vista Social Club – and whose latest, Perfect Days, is a very modest, very delightful film about a dutiful Japanese ablutions cleaner – is ensconced deep in luxury La-La Land.

But he’s there on a campaign. The new film is on the Oscar shortlist of 15 for Best International Feature after the Japanese awards committee named it as the country’s entry. Yes, Wenders was surprised when he got the news. He thinks it’s due to the high regard in which his leading man Kōji Yakusho is held in Japan, especially after his best actor award at Cannes last year for his expressive, minimal-dialogue performance.

So, Herr Wenders and Yakusho-san are in Tinseltown with a translator to drum up votes for a nomination. In the charm offensive, Wenders says he’s playing second fiddle to the man he calls the greatest actor in the world. “I’m just his German director sidekick.”

The Oscar category they are vying for was previously “Best Foreign Language Film”. What a pity, the Listener suggests, there isn’t one for “best foreign language film in which the language is foreign, even to the film’s director”.

“That category I would win,” he replies, laughing.

Talking to the dry-witted godfather of European cinema about his low-budget Japanese film while he’s at Hollywood ground zero might seem incongruous. But Los Angeles – and indeed America – once loomed large in the 78-year-old’s wanderlust career.