So having had a feast of high budget US feature films recently I thought I should try a cinematic sorbet and went to see French film Slack Bay at the Curzon cinema the other day in London.
******Spoilers****Spoilers****Spoilers****Spoilers****
Now I love comedy, several of my top ten films of all time are comedy, and I've spent quite a lot of time in France over the last 44 years, and I think, I have a very wide understanding and appreciation and knowledge of comedy.
I have also written comedy, performed comedy and directed actors doing comedy.
I would describe Slack Bay as 'Without humour'.
Slack Bay is just a terribly unfunny film. After a mere 15 minutes (it's an excruciating 2 hours and 2 mins) I was anxiously glancing at my watch and wondering if it can really be this bad throughout - but it was!
There are no 'jokes', no clever dialogue, just a little bit of visual humour. One of the main characters has a strange shambling walk, which he does in every scene. He sits in a deckchair and it collapses. But not overtime he sits in a deckchair and the one time he sits in a deckchair and it SHOULD collapse. predictably it doesn't.
It is a film of grotesque but that gives a name and a 'style' to what anyone else would call rubbish. It features unjustified and unpunished cannibalism which is just horrid and not funny or even in keeping with the rest of the film. There's a lot of spitting up close to the camera which is clearly hilarious in the eyes of the 'director' but didn't elicit a titter from me or the audience. There's a lot of homophobia and one of the main characters gets a huge beating for being a boy dressed as a girl dressed as a boy (?) which just felt terribly out of place in a 'comedy'.
So many scenes don't go anywhere and every joke is repeated: When the fat detective walks there is a dubbed on sound of someone rubbing balloons. again and again and again and again and again. The secret of comedy is timing, as we all know and the editor and director just never knew when to cut and when too much was too much.
I was so hoping that this would be the antidote to Hollywood Block Busters that I wanted but it ain't.
Apart from the pretty good wardrobe, and OK cinematography (which in these days of Digital cameras is achievable by children with an iPhone) and the star turn of actress known only as Raph, it is unwatchable pants.
As I considered the varied merits of the film as I left the cinema one of the other cinema goers said to me: "What did you make of that?" I said: "It didn't really work for me, where's the story?" and he said: "It was just a terrible mess" quite.
This film was nominated for an award at the Cannes Film Festival which just goes to show that I really don't know anything.
1 out of 5 without humour.
******Spoilers****Spoilers****Spoilers****Spoilers****
Now I love comedy, several of my top ten films of all time are comedy, and I've spent quite a lot of time in France over the last 44 years, and I think, I have a very wide understanding and appreciation and knowledge of comedy.
I have also written comedy, performed comedy and directed actors doing comedy.
I would describe Slack Bay as 'Without humour'.
Slack Bay is just a terribly unfunny film. After a mere 15 minutes (it's an excruciating 2 hours and 2 mins) I was anxiously glancing at my watch and wondering if it can really be this bad throughout - but it was!
There are no 'jokes', no clever dialogue, just a little bit of visual humour. One of the main characters has a strange shambling walk, which he does in every scene. He sits in a deckchair and it collapses. But not overtime he sits in a deckchair and the one time he sits in a deckchair and it SHOULD collapse. predictably it doesn't.
It is a film of grotesque but that gives a name and a 'style' to what anyone else would call rubbish. It features unjustified and unpunished cannibalism which is just horrid and not funny or even in keeping with the rest of the film. There's a lot of spitting up close to the camera which is clearly hilarious in the eyes of the 'director' but didn't elicit a titter from me or the audience. There's a lot of homophobia and one of the main characters gets a huge beating for being a boy dressed as a girl dressed as a boy (?) which just felt terribly out of place in a 'comedy'.
So many scenes don't go anywhere and every joke is repeated: When the fat detective walks there is a dubbed on sound of someone rubbing balloons. again and again and again and again and again. The secret of comedy is timing, as we all know and the editor and director just never knew when to cut and when too much was too much.
I was so hoping that this would be the antidote to Hollywood Block Busters that I wanted but it ain't.
Apart from the pretty good wardrobe, and OK cinematography (which in these days of Digital cameras is achievable by children with an iPhone) and the star turn of actress known only as Raph, it is unwatchable pants.
As I considered the varied merits of the film as I left the cinema one of the other cinema goers said to me: "What did you make of that?" I said: "It didn't really work for me, where's the story?" and he said: "It was just a terrible mess" quite.
This film was nominated for an award at the Cannes Film Festival which just goes to show that I really don't know anything.
1 out of 5 without humour.