Mambrú and his crew attempt to sedate a vicious dog to obtain his leader, they have to deal with possible landmines laid under dead cows for foreigners who “bring war” and a shopkeeper who refuses to sell them rope because it is needed “for hangings.” There are comic-bizarre elements to the hunt for a rope, in keeping with a certain style of Balkan filmmaking (and perhaps life). When the aging, overworked rope breaks, finding a replacement consumes the energies of Mambrú’s team, composed of the cynical, crusty American, “B” (Tim Robbins), local interpreter Damir (Fedja Štukan), French newcomer Sophie (Mélanie Thierry) and Mambrú’s former flame Katya (Olga Kurylenko), now in charge of evaluating whether the fictional aid organization should remain in the country.

“He didn’t go hungry in the war,” he comments, referring to the unknown dead man’s corpulence. Aid worker Mambrú (Benicio del Toro) is directing the operation. The initial scene shows the corpse of a man being hauled out of a well, where it has been thrown to poison the water-a common practice enabling profiteers to then charge the hard-pressed locals for drinking water. The “somewhere” is presumably Bosnia and “a perfect day” is the 24-hour period in which the most elementary task facing the aid workers becomes a Sisyphean effort. Unhappily, however, in keeping with the general trend of contemporary filmmaking, the director restrains himself from saying anything urgent or concrete about the history or origins of the brutal conflict and the role of the great powers in particular in encouraging the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991.Ī Perfect Day opens “Somewhere in the Balkans” in 1995 or 1996.

A Perfect Day is done with some intelligence and sensitivity.

León de Aranoa sets his latest film in the midst of the devastation produced by the Bosnian War and its horrific consequences for the population. His Mondays in the Sun (2002), featuring Javier Bardem, deals with a group of laid-off shipyard workers in northwestern Spain. León de Aranoa is a filmmaker with an antenna pointed in an interesting direction. The film is based on the novel Dejarse Llover (Let It Rain) by Paula Farias, a physician and former head of Doctors Without Borders in Spain.

Film a perfect day