Der schöne Tag

There are films in which hardly anything seems to happen but where, in the meantime, whole viewpoints on the world change. In Der schöne Tag Deniz finishes with her boyfriend in the morning, tells her mother and sister, meets a potential new lover and the next day carries on dubbing a film that is, of course, about love. A lot has happened by then. First Deniz tried the role of deceived girlfriend by accusing her boyfriend of looking at other women. But by next morning she has left far behind her the idea that true love only ends in deceit and pain. The fact that she needs conversations and thoughts as well as experience and emotion, turns Deniz into an exceptionally complete film character. She tries with both her feelings and her intellect to acquire a new and better idea of love. This helps make the tranquil Der schöne Tag into a strikingly mature film narrative about relationships.Arslan filmed his ‘Bildungsroman’ in clear and taut images with Deniz as a silent planet orbiting summery Berlin. The film effortlessly places itself in the tradition of urban films like Menschen am Sontag (1929, Robert Siodmak), complete with an outing to the lake. The great difference with that film is however that in this case the girls do not wait sulkily for their boyfriends, but themselves decide where love takes them.(Beatrijs van Agt is editor of Skrien)