Day One

Co-writer and director Henry Hughes realized his filmmaking dream after his two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and with a little assistance from Star Wars creator George Lucas, crafted his pipe-dream of a short film into a reality with a potential for an Oscar. The result is Day One, a mostly effective short film revolving around an interpreter for the United States Army, who is put in the compromising position when she is forced to deliver a baby for an enemy bombmaker's wife. The baby's position has shifted in the mother's uterus, to the point where its hand is sticking out of the mother's crotch without any discernible pulse. The only option, as told by the doctor, is to cut the baby's arm off and extract its corpse piece-by-piece.

The horrifying bloodbath races through the mind of the woman (Layla Alizada), who never believed she'd have to do anything close to this. Time is running out, the mother is in excruciating pain, and dread and uncertainty looms over the household like a gray cloud.

For the first half of its twenty-five minute runtime, Hughes prefers to capture the situation in a way that's largely naturalistic; one that emphasizes ambient noise and appropriate sounds of the location rather than mawkish music. However, but the third act, the short slowly devolves into incredulous territory, where the impossible becomes the possible and the conflict at hand is solved all too easily. The circumstance that was potentially catastrophic a moment ago has turned into optimism ripe for emotional exploitation and the short concludes down a path I was crossing my fingers it wouldn't take the whole time.

Still, Day One is worth it for the strong performance by Alizada, who manages to command the screen pretty admirably throughout the entire film, and Hughes really knows how to craft an unforgivably tense environment. With that, Day One seems like its inching towards greatness only to hesitantly back off in favor of a safer route most people would find easier to swallow.

This film was definitely the most difficult to watch of all the nominees for Best Live-Action Short. It's quite timely and very well done but I noticed a lot of folks cringing and reacting viscerally to this film. The fact that it made such a big impact is a good thing...but some will find this all a bit unpleasant.

The story is set in what you assume is Afghanistan--though I don't recall the film even mentioning where the American soldiers were stationed in that general area. A new female interpreter has just arrived and is about to go on her first assignment. Unfortunately, this first encounter will clearly be among the most traumatic and difficult of her military career. This is because not only is one of the men killed by some sort of explosion but subsequently they come upon a family and the wife is dying because of a very, very complicated pregnancy. So not only will the interpreter have to interpret but because of the Muslim culture, the men in the group are not allowed to see the woman in labor. But it's a very, very bad labor and the interpreter cannot imagine anything good coming out of this...and she's probably right. It's going to be a horrible day.

As I said above, this is a very traumatic film and one I would not want younger viewers to see. I could say more but you'd just have to see it for yourself to know what I mean. The film is not gratuitous in its violence but it's a situation that is bleak and depressing...but also exceptionally well made and one of the most unusual shorts I've ever seen.

UPDATE: "Stutterer" took the Oscar for Best Live Action Short.

Day One (2015)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Of all the live action Oscar nominated shorts this one here from Henry Hughes is certainly the most unpleasant. It deals with a woman named Feda (Layla Alizada) who is on her first tour in Afghanistan working as an interpreter. She ends up at the home of a bomb maker where she's just expecting to translate but soon the man's pregnant wife goes into labor.

DAY ONE is a fairly grim and graphic tale that could have very well gone down the road of exploitation and been one of the more disgusting entries in that genre. However, it doesn't go down that path and instead turns into a pretty frank and brutal character study as we get to see various obstacles this woman goes through on her first day on the job. What really helps the movie are the terrific performance by the entire cast. It's certainly not a very easy film to watch but it really pays off in the end.

"Day One" (USA, 20 min.) – In Afghanistan, a young female interpreter experiences an especially dramatic first day on the job working with U.S. soldiers. She starts off on the wrong foot by using the shower at the wrong time, then struggles to understand the expectations and procedures of her new environment. On her first mission with the squad to which she is assigned, she delays their march when she has to stop to urinate, she's almost killed by an IED, she has to translate during a heated exchange between her squad's leader and an Afghan man who is a suspected insurgent and then she is forced to help the man's pregnant wife when she suddenly goes into labor and the first part of the baby to emerge is its arm. Written and directed by a former U.S. Army paratrooper as a tribute to one of his unit's former interpreters, this is a personal and powerful look at the challenges of modern warfare. "A"

This is perhaps the best short film that I have ever seen. Great script, incredible acting, and simply (a must see gem)! I have watched thousands of hours of supposedly "great" films, and have never seen anything so well crafted, emotionally involving, and fundamentally human as this. It is simply "the best of the best"!