Perfect Days

It seems that Alice Nellis gave up on her ambition to make “great art” and started putting lipstick on pigs. Perfect Days is a dolled-up swine in its seriously intended use of advertising (or television) aesthetics, feigned worldliness and unwillingness to show at least a bit of the ugliness that the  make-up conceals. Bad things happen mainly to the obviously socially weaker supporting characters, and the protagonist just doesn’t know who she wants to be. Any more serious scene is immediately pushed aside by infantile humour and a pop song. One lives for material things and physical pleasure. The theatrical division into acts draws attention to the origins of the source work and underscores the idea of life as a nonstop party (birthday, Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, birthday, Mother’s Day, birthday). The main thing is to enjoy it. As in many other romantic comedies, it is better not to talk about “unheimlich” things here (the dispositive of sexuality is, in the better case, from fifty years ago). The senseless tabooization of certain topics, resulting in the inability to speak on the level to the characters, complicates life and draws out the plot, which at most is sufficient for a single episode of a television series. No one acts like an adult, without hysterics and grimacing, and if anyone in the director’s world has the right to be taken seriously, it is not men. One of them is an insensitive boor, the protagonist remakes another guy in her own image during a humiliating procedure (from a hipster to a metrosexual) and the third one is gay, fulfilling the role of a gossip buddy (with the added feature that he can also serve as a sperm donor). Nellis is basically more interested only in Erika, who I suppose has the most in common with her. She reduces the other characters to comedic pawns or personified warnings of where the protagonist might end up in her submissive fulfilment of her expected role as a mother/housewife. There are films that give us the possibility of escaping to a rosier world for two hours, and then there are films like Perfect Days, which drag us into that world and try to persuade us for two hours that this way and this way alone is OK. No, it’s not. 35% (2011-11-09)

Alice Nellis is one of the most distinctive directors of contemporary Czech cinema, and she is needed very much in the Czech Republic. The fact that she is not afraid to make quality contemporary female films is a miracle. Little Girl Blue with Iva Bittová was a minor miracle, while Perfect Days is a bit more conformist but all the more assured. Ivana Chýlková repeatedly does a service to Czech cinema through her leading roles, which work without the slightest hesitation, and without having to borrow any mannerisms to capture the current civility. I'm pleasantly surprised that in this constellation Nellis managed to conciliate all the main (the story of a woman between the ages of 44 and 45) and secondary themes (her gay boyfriend, her unhealthy fixation on her mother, the question of single motherhood and her young lover) without being unnecessarily awkward. (2013-01-22)

I have one basic problem with Perfect Days – I saw it first in the theater. Not directed by Alice Nellis with Zuzana Bydžovská in the lead role, but at the South Bohemian Theater, where the lead role was played by Věra Hlaváčková, which probably doesn't mean much to you, but I can confidently say that I really enjoyed the performance because the acting was excellent. Moreover, stories tend to look better on stage, especially when they are primarily intended for the theater. I had a similar feeling from Carnage, which wasn't bad in Polanski's version, but it still felt more or less like a play transferred to the screen, where theatricality was suppressed in terms of smaller gestures, although even in this case, there wasn't a big difference. The original play was good, and the film was good as well. In the case of Perfect Days, this doesn’t entirely hold true. The story didn't transfer to the screen in a way that kept it equally funny. However, this isn't because Ivana Chýlková or Ondřej Sokol acted poorly; on the contrary, they are excellent, especially in comparison to the annoying Bohumil Klepl, they simply excel. Vojtěch Kotek is on the verge of being someone you either can't stand or might like. The problem with the film is that it feels a bit stretched, and somehow this makes it difficult to build up the jokes so they actually land humorously. You might smile, but you won't be rolling on the floor laughing. Still, it is a good adaptation of the play to the screen that certainly won’t disappoint. Moreover, the theme is very relevant, especially for women. (2013-02-25)