Benicio del Toro: Black comedy in a warzone

Benicio del Toro plays an aid worker in a new film set during the Balkans conflict. He tells Tom Brook how preparing for the part taught him the secret to staying sane in a warzone.

Set in the Balkans in 1995, A Perfect Day follows a group of aid workers as they attempt to remove a corpse from a village well. Benicio del Toro stars alongside Tim Robbins and the French actress Mélanie Thierry (Babylon AD), who plays a humourless newcomer wanting to play by the book. She tells Tom Brook how the film explores the realities of war through comedy, as her character comes to understand “that it’s the secret: if you have humour, you can go on”.

Based on a Spanish novel and directed by Spanish film-maker Fernando León de Aranoa, the film follows the mould of MASH with its characters doling out wisecracks in bleak surroundings. Del Toro spoke to aid workers before playing the role, and describes how “most of them, when they told the story of their experiences, they were followed by a laugh… Their humour is not that they’re de-sensitised to what’s around, it’s more of a shield that they need to have in order to protect themselves from the horror that surrounds them.”

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