A Perfect Day

It is ironic that war is the biggest industry on the planet. Its wider industrial domain includes warrior politicians, arms manufacturers and military forces. Less acknowledged, it also includes those who perpetually seek amelioration of its consequences like the United Nations and various humanitarian aid agencies. All of those groups regularly star in movies but aid workers get little cinematic glory. It is in this wider context that the Spanish-directed film A Perfect Day (2015) is an unusual and original addition to black comedy war dramas, least of all because the way it avoids typical war movie scenarios and narratives. It covers 'one perfect day' during the military wind-down in the Balkans crisis of mid 1990s and is a refreshing, entertaining and informative insight into the role of aid workers when the big guns go quiet.

The story begins and ends with the image of a big fat corpse in a well, dumped deliberately to pollute village water. In between we see the frantic efforts by a small group of aid workers to find scarce rope that can haul him out, and rope becomes a metaphor to join several unconnected incidents that make up the narrative. There Is no sound of bombs or signs of fighting; we only see a beautiful country full of silent monuments to the devastation of war. Bombed-out ghosts of villages, homeless children, poverty and toxic hygiene are some of an aid worker's challenges and black humour is the universal panacea for coping. On this day, the group must deal with the risk of hidden road mines in cattle carcasses, villager distrust and military animosity towards interfering aid workers, and a United Nations bureaucracy that shows little sensitivity towards dispossessed victims of war. Oh, and find a soccer ball for a young boy.

As with all character-driven films, this one is less about what happens and more about what it is like to be there. The characters built with re-purposed M.A.S.H. traits that are likable, funny and plausible, and the acting is top-class. There are no glory hounds in the group and each has their own coping strengths and emotional foibles. The director orchestrates the characters and sub- stories with perfect tempo to produce a story that is totally engaging if not gripping. You might wonder how a group of loosely disciplined and unaccountable workers can roam freely across a war-ravaged country, or whether the final scene is actually a political statement about their true value. If so, the film has made its mark.

Foreign films rarely get the proper recognition in the English speaking world, be that the US or Great Britain. Only recently have foreign films been allowed to compete in categories other than Best Foreign film at the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes still relegate them to the Foreign Film category. If we look at the box-office results we see an even more drastic condition. The highest grossing foreign film of all time in the US is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which made $127 million, something the small Pitch Perfect film achieved in 2011 which much less effort. But being shunned from awards and shut out from the box office doesn't mean foreign films don't have quality, just look at the great Italian films Cinema Paradiso or Life is Beautiful, or at Jacques Tati's film repertoire, Almodovar and Amenabar in Spain, Michael Haneke in Austria, and the great master Miyazaki and Kurozawa in Japan. This brings us to A Perfect Day the newest film from Spanish director Fernando Leon de Aranoa. The film is made by Spaniards, told in English, and takes place in the Balkans, a very curious mix, which nonetheless produced one of the best films of the year.

A Perfect Day tells the story of a group of aid workers working in the midst of the Balkan crisis in 1995. We have Mambru (Benicio del Toro) the group's unofficial leader and head of security, the wisecracking B (Tim Robbins), the rookie Sophie (Melanie Thierry), and their translator Damir (Fedja Stukan). The film opens with Mambru trying to take a dead body out of a town well. It's the body of an obese man, which later symbolizes of the dreading weight that the group is trying to relieve without help from the UN or the locals, all trying to help a country they barely know. The story intensifies when Mambru picks up a lost local kid named Nikola (Eldar Residovic) who had his soccer ball stolen by bullies, and finally Mambru's ex shows up (Olga Kurylenko) to evaluate the situation in the Balkans. Essentially the movie is a road-trip through the Bosnian countryside, letting you catch a glimpse of the situation that the locals lived in (and still live in today).

What most surprised me about A Perfect Day was the incredible balance it has. When touching upon the subject of war, it is very easy to be extreme. Extreme in the sense that you show a gore- fest and lots of blood and death, or an extreme where you try to cover up everything and have only descriptions from characters of passed events. A Perfect Day achieves its goal of brutalizing war with simple acts, like when a kid pulls out a gun when fighting over a ball, or when a store-owner can't sell his rope because he has them reserved for hangings, or when a shy adolescent watches over an empty warehouse, but is spurred with hope for protecting its flag. It is these little details littered in the story that really give you the sense of suffering and dread that can be seen in times of war.

In terms of the acting, it was also very well balanced. You had Robbins as the comic relief, and Del Toro as the speaker of truth. Both actors give an incredible performance, with visible yet admirable improvisation. Meanwhile the supporting cast also is incredibly solid. The more known names of Olga Kurylenko and Melanie Thierry do a fine job, but the surprises here were in the local actors: Fedja Stukan and Eldar Residovic who both give incredibly raw and layered performances that have us longing to console them, yet you never once pity them in the undignified sense.

Then the cinematography is also very simple, but yet contains a few flourishes and Director of Photography Alex Catalan (Marshland, Unit 7) gives the movie a cold almost wintery look that makes the message and harshness of the story fall sharper and hit you harder.

Finally, the script was incredibly witty and quick. The character development in the two hours of running time is so smooth you barely notice it, but when comparing the characters at the beginning and at the end of the movie you see how subtle Leon de Aranoa was (especially with the character Sophie). The dialogue is absolutely delicious, with the best being quirky exchanges between B and Mambru.

In the end this film, again, exemplifies that "there is life outside the US" and that foreign cinema (in particular Spanish cinema) is growing and cultivating fresh crops of new artists. And in a world of war and sorrow, art is sometimes the only window of hope.

Spanish physician Paula Farias (Doctors without Borders) wrote a novel based on her experience in the Balkans and the present film (an English spoken Spanish production) represents the cinematographic transposition of her work.

It's a lovely movie with no plot: it just narrates how common people could spend a day (actually a couple of days) trying to help, in the middle of events enormously bigger than them.

There are no heroes here, only experience. No guilt, just sorrow. No right way to do things besides thinking and wishing to care. And then there is fate, of course.

A (good) way to look at the world.

"A Perfect Day" brings us back in 1995 and offers an interesting point of view to the last days of the Bosnian war.

The movie reveals a day of an international team of aid workers. It is a drama with a pinch of black humor. The movie shows the horror of the war, the pain of the local people and alludes the cruelty of religious intolerance. Most importantly it reminds the imperfection of the society and the black spot from the European history that should never be forgotten.

More than 20 years later, although I am also living on the Balkans, I still cannot figure out why this war started. A total madness that led to some many casualties and losses for everyone involved...

The music is great and so is the cast of "A Perfect Day". I always enjoy watching actors like Benicio Del Toro and Tim Robbins. Mélanie Thierry, Fedja Stukan and the young boy Eldar Residovic also played well. Olga Kurylenko, who you may remember as a Bond girl, performed excellently. Btw it is a bit sad that no matter what she does the "Bond" label will always be with her.

A Perfect Day tells the story of a group of aid workers during the Balkan War. The daily problems they encounter to do their job as good as possible. Don't expect much action or so because the story is just them trying to find a piece of rope so they can extract a dead body out of a well. Seems easy but in a hostile environment where all the concerned parties are not willing to help it becomes a challenge. Even though there is not much action the story is enjoyable to watch. Add on that first class actors and you get a good movie that is worth a watch. Benicio Del Toro and Tim Robbins are always a delight to watch and in A Perfect Day they do what we are used of them. The script is good, the actors are good, the filming is good, and there is even a bit of humor. Entertaining movie.