Review of A Perfect Day (2015) by Fiona S — 13 Oct 2017

One of the best movies I saw in 2016. You feel like you get a real insight in the life of aid workers, how they go about the business of making small but practical differences, day to day for the survivors of war, in this case the Balkans in 1995, the exact place isn't named and sadly isn't so important as the devastation is so wide spread.

The have to negotiate, paramilitaries, an angry ex lover in one case, and international considerations and bureaucracy, which manage to have a lot of directives but get very little done. There is a telling scene where a new French aid worker tells the UN soldiers that a body in a well should be removed to help prevent an epidemic, perfect common sense, only to be met by the impedance of the UN forces, at a situation that doesn't meet their rules, and the knowing silence of the veteran worker (played by Benicio del Toro).

He has already decided to get the body moved himself, knowing otherwise it will never happen. Some really funny lines are spoken in the middle of tragedy, a lot delivered by Tim Robbins, a speeding aid worker veteran, whose character may not function well if he ever returns to the normal world, but is perfect here, and Damir the interpreter.

We see how humour at the ridiculousness of war is a way they handle the horror and help the workers to keep functioning. When they're facing the possibility of death or injury due to mines on the road, Benicio suddenly has to deal with a long distance call from his girlfriend regarding the colour of furniture in their bedroom.

No huge shoot outs or dramatic self realisation speeches (thank goodness) but a story of what some simple, often bumbling humanity can do to help, what the best people can do in the face of the worst that people do.

It will make some viewers start Googling future careers as aid workers.