Though it is apparently still in post-production, a trailer for A Perfect Day has hit the web ahead of WestEnd Films packaging it for sale at the European Film Market next week.
Written and directed by Fernando Leon de Aranoa (Mondays In The Sun), who adapted the story from the novel Dejarse Ilover, by Paula Farias, A Perfect Day tells the tale of five conflict zone aid workers who all have various agendas. They find themselves having to work together to left a dead body out of a well, so a community can have access to water. The film stars Academy Award winners Benicio Del Toro (Traffic) and Tim Robbins (Mystic River), who are ably supported by Olga Kurylenko (Oblivion) Melanie Thierry (The Zero Theorem), and Fedja Stukan (In The Land Of Blood And Honey)
Variety reports that writer-director Fernando Leon de Aranoa explained his view of the project to the press last year:
“Fast, direct, rough, a race against the clock – this film has no time to waste. Like cars stuck in the mud, like trucks in The Wages Of Fear, like the aid workers on the ground. The wittiest comments, comedy at its wildest and grittiest – its most desperate – often happens in the very midst of tragedy. Because there is no place on earth where it is more necessary.”
His comments highlight the most important factor in the trailer – which is the humour. It is very dark, and very sharp, and the assembled cast are perhaps better suited to deliver that type of material than most. Del Toro appears to be at his most enigmatic, while Robbins seems to be bringing the kind of performance we have been waiting for from him for a long time.
Provided A Perfect Day finds the right distributor, it looks like it might just be the kind of independent shot in the arm cinema needs right now, as we lurch out of a difficult award season and into a fairly barren spring release schedule. This is definitely a title to keep a look out for.
