International
relief workers finally get the M*A*S*H treatment.
These Aid Across Borders volunteers hook-up and joke around, but they truly
want to help the civilian population that has been so traumatized by the Balkan
War. However, a relatively simple task will escalate into a life-and-death crisis
in Fernando León de Aranoa’s English language debut, A Perfect Day (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.
A
rotund corpse has been dumped in a Balkan village’s only potable drinking well.
Mambrú, a veteran Spanish field worker and his local fixer Damir were on the case,
but their rope broke. Their gonzo colleague B and the naïve rookie Sophie were
nearby, but they are fresh out of rope. Unfortunately, the nearest general
store has plenty of rope, but it happens to be in a different ethnic conclave.
It is pretty clear the locals were either responsible for the body in the first
place or are protecting those who put it there.
Thus
begins an increasingly absurd and dangerous quest for rope. Frankly, it is
probably the first time B has been so determined to find hemp in this form. Of
course, the UN (the Blue Helmets) are not much help. Unfortunately, the Aid
Across Borders bureaucracy does not understand the boots-on-the-ground
realities either. Believing the truce renders their services unnecessary, they
have dispatched Mambrú’s former mistress Katya to write a report that confirms
their judgement. Whether she likes it or not, she is about to join the
mismatched quartet in their mad dash for rope—and it is rather pressing. If
they can remove it within twenty-four hours, the purification process will be
relatively non-invasive, but if the well is befouled any longer than that, it
will have to be closed.
Maybe
they would have a better chance of finding rope if they could actually identify
which country they were in. All we are told is that it takes place somewhere in
the Balkans circa 1995. It sure looks like Bosnia and the sinister folks who
refuse to share their rope definitely bring to mind the Bosnia Serbs, but the
mealy-mouth nature of León de Aranoa’s screenplay (based on a novel by Paula
Farias, former head of the Spanish operational section of Doctors Without
Borders) is rather annoying on that score. That is a shame, because the film has
real bite when it conveys a sense of war’s random cruelty and the cluelessness
of the UN forces.
The
NGO’s international constituency allows León de Aranoa to assemble an
interesting cast that probably would not otherwise have a chance to work
together. Tim Robbins arguably does his funniest work since The Player as the defiantly rude B. Mélanie
Thierry’s guileless Sophie serves as an effective audience proxy when
confronting the disillusioning realities of war. Naturally, Bernicio Del Toro
plays Mambrú the ladies’ man, because what woman could resist a piece of man
candy like him, right? Of course, Olga Kurylenko’s sex appeal is better established,
but she plays Katya as a refreshingly smart and assertive professional.
However, the real discovery is the Bosnian Fedja Stukan, who basically steals
the show as the salt-of-the-earth but decidedly vulnerable Danir.
