The film begins with people watching a movie, but we don't get to see the movie. We are watching this...thing instead. Everyone is laughing except one man, who I assume is the titular man. Who can't laugh.
The man starts screaming, and an usher helps him out. The man goes to a person named Arve Oppsal and asks for a story or joke to check whether he can still laugh. Arve Oppsal tells the following joke:
A man was out fishing when the warden comes after him. The warden came out and the man started running, but the warden caught up and asks "Why are you running? Don't you have a license?" The man replies "Aren't you allowed to run if you have a fishing license?"
I don't think this joke is the best one to tell to check whether someone can laugh. The man starts screaming
The opening credits are over a still of the man but his mouth opens every so often to scream a la Monty Python's Flying Circus,
The man (Sonell) is at a psychiatrist named Karl Riefel. who asks why Sonell can't laugh, Apparently, at 18 months, he had surgery and went under anesthesia, but when he woke up he couldn't laugh. He is middle-aged, why hasn't he sought help before?
Riefel asks Sonell what happens when he tries to laugh. Sonell says it is hard to explain, but it begins in stomach and moves up to his Adams head. The psychiatrist corrects him "Adam's Apple," Is there a really subtle joke there?
Riefel tells him to relax, open his throat. and think of something funny. Sonell chooses Albert Sweitzer playing the organ in jungle. What am I missing? He asks psychiatrists to start laughter so that can join in. Sonell tries to laugh, but screams instead. Riefel says they will start talking about his childhood. Enter flashback
Sonell's father gets upset that he plays with a Swedish girl next door. So the moral is "Nationalism kills your sense of humor"? Anyway, I thought the reason he couldn't laugh was the anesthesia
His mother sings about a "little-weak-chested" girl at a hospital, who can't go home for the Easter.
Karl Riefel suggests going back to childhood home next week. This movie isn't really about disability, but I wan't to finish because it is so strange.
There's a musical number that just repeats "the man who couldn't laugh" Get it? It's the title of the film.
Sonell goes into elevator with a woman. He plays a song on the elevator buttons. What? I guess it was an uplifting song.
Also, he can see the woman naked in the mirror. What?
Sonell translates comic books for a living and dresses up as one with everyone else in a board meeting. This movie is weird.
The boss is upset about the caption on a panel of someone hitting someone else. Sonell gives a detailed analysis of the correct onomatopoeia of the punch, but they do a complex study of the sound by breaking the table with a chair. They conclude that the correct sound is "Crash". That joke is about 75% of the way to being funny.
Sonell is walking in a park when the image freezes. I legitimately thought the DVD player froze, but it is part of the movie. The narrator, who is now able to interact with the characters, suggests that Sonell do something fun to make him laugh. Sonell decides to go to a museum. I know museums always make me laugh. Sonell touches the exhibits in a museum and they start to dance. So that's why you aren't supposed to touch things. This movie is very straight-forward compared to Mysterious Object at Noon.
Sonell goes to a movie theater and watches a war movie with some soldiers. We also learn that it is 1943. Okay.
The movie shows some soldiers and the soldiers in the audience shoot at the screen. When did this turn into 1984?
The museum is opening a new exhibit called "relax and get well" That's convenient. The museum curator panics and faints when he hears that the exhibit is opening tomorrow because it isn't ready yet. Get it? The exhibit is called "relax and get well", but the curator isn't relaxing. Subtle irony is the best irony.
Sonell goes to an exhibit of old buildings. He goes inside one of them to sleep and opera music plays.
Karl Riefel and his nurse claim that Sonell is late for the visit back to his home. This is why The Man Who Couldn't Laugh is superior to Mysterious Object at Noon- it's somewhat coherent.
Riefel orders an expensive salmon meal on the way so he can watch Sonell eat. Apparently, the Düsseldorf school of thought looks at external behavior to find internal problems. Sonell says he isn't hungry. He isn't very cooperative either.
Sonell has to urinate outside and they make a big deal out of the nurse and psychiatrist sitting awkwardly. Then Riefel gives his nurse grounds to file a sexual harassment in the workplace complaint against him. I mean, he asks her to marry him.
Cut to a movie inside the movie (if you can call this a movie). It's a commentary on "Three days to go" The movie goes over the Norwegian marriage traditions.
For this section of the blog, I'm commentating on a movie that's commentating on another movie. Just want to point that up
The movie inside the movie is about Norwegian marriage traditions, but it also cuts to things like building a road through a mine and different types of flowers. So it's as coherent as its parent movie.
Speaking of the parent movie, we finally get to see his home town and there is a flashback of Sonell and Stina (the Swedish girl who lived across from him) playing together. The footage is sped up with "comedic music". Because that is what makes comedy.
There's a weird scene in which Sonell's father (I think) plays a violin near Sonell and Stina having a picnic. Stina runs her finger around the rim of the glass to produce the humming sound and the glass explodes. She does it to another glass and the sound makes the violin explode. I could spend time analyzing the symbolism but I don't think it is worth it.
In the next flashback, Sonell's father goes into a shack and Sonell and Stina blow it up and start laughing. I'm not a psychiatrist and I already know Sonell's problem- Sociopathy.
The next flashback is at a barn and sonell talks about one time he and Stina put on a revue about being happy. His audience (presumably family members) just scowl. Then he starts telling jokes. If these are his only jokes, it makes sense that he can't laugh:
Teacher: Was it you or was it you two who fought? Answer Me!
Boy: It was the two of us
Teacher: Are you answering back, too?
(in a railway compartment)
Father: Yes son, we're in Moss soon
Boy: Yes Dad, it smells strange it here
Father: It's because they make paper in Moss
Boy: It must be toilet paper, then.
Sonell elaborates:
During the second joke, one of the audience members takes a big drink out of a bottle and offers it to the man next to him. That is the first legitimately funny part of the movie.
They do a skit where Sonell comes in to his "wife" and orders her to take the baby out. Sonell's father overhears and shoots the scenery. Well, he was already chewing it. Then he takes away the money Stina has been saving up and donates it to charity.
Sonell decides to go on a train to Moss. he walks down a row of lockers and opens one. Laughter comes out and the main theme song starts again. I guess it's been long enough since the last surreal segment. Sonell crawls through the locker and finds a band with a woman singing about how a clown who can make others laugh but not himself/ . As guest 100,000, Sonell becomes stationmaster for the day and gets swarmed with girls. He pulls his head out of the locker and he still has the stationmasters uniform on. It didn't make sense to me either.
Sonell, as the stationmaster, decides to sexually harass an employee. What a charming movie. I think it's Stina. What? Sonell says: "I was promoted in a locker. The railway nightclub, you know?" This movie is weird.
The real stationmaster opens the door, sees the Sonell and Stina embracing, and closes the door. Okay.
He comes back with a bunch of men to carry Sonell away. Sonell claims that the constitution gives him the right to dress in any way he wants and also that he abides by maritime law and does not consent. He is put into detention and Reifel bails him out. I'm confused.
In the car, the psychiatrist asks whether Sonell is Norwegian. I would have thought that the he would ask that way before now, such as at their first meeting. Reifel says it is a nationalist thing and asks why Norwegians don't laugh. What was the point of doing the complex psychoanalysis of his childhood then?
Karl Reifel tap dances on the streets of Norway and asks people why they don't laugh. Some answers include "because of the war", "things are only funny in the metaphorical sense" and "it's just a prank, bro,"
Karl Reifel hires someone to talk to Sonell about people without humor. The presenter is upset that people don't find things like pulling chairs out from under them before they sit and pretending to push someone off a diving board funny. So sociopathy is comedy now?
The presenter says he has a joke to test people. It starts "A man was taken to court for beating his wife" If this is his test joke, I don't want to hear his others.
In this joke, the wife says that the man would come home drunk and beat his her and their kids. The judge asks why the woman didn't retaliate and the woman replies "I tried to, but then he started beating me up with a bottle." The man says "Don't listen to her, she's punch drunk."
Um, that's slightly more funny than the other jokes in this movie but I question the subject matter.
Sonell starts screaming instead of laughing the scene cuts to him and Stina walking at night. Stina wants a glass of water from her apartment, but only women are allowed in. This movie is going down the list of things-that-are-considered-funny-but-really-aren't and "Dressing in drag" is next on the list.
At the apartment, it's hot date night. Hot date night includes reading introductory foreign language books. What? Sonell asks what the Spanish word for "I love you" is and Stina says "It's not under 'at the hotel' or 'at the post office,'" There's a hint of a punchline in there, maybe.
Now Stina begins tickling Sonell. Really? Nobody has thought to do this before. It doesn't work because he just screams.
Sonell goes to a comedian and lies down like it's a psychiatrist. That's pretty funny.
Sonell and Stina watch a movie. Stina is sobbing and Sonell is stony-faced. So he can't feel any emotion? They buy hot dogs and at first Stina is too sad about the film to eat but then she wants one. Then she spends a few minutes lamenting the fate of the person cooking the hot dogs. Okay.
Stina is talking about the movie as if it were:
Pick your Reference
The Notebook
Titanic
Me Before You
Stina looks at the hot dog man walking home alone and says she is sad that he is lonely. She asks Sonell to talk to the hot dog man, but Sonell says he can't talk to a stranger. Stina keeps talking about how lonely the hot dog man is to a creepy degree.
Stina says something about how Sonell doesn't laugh because he "just looks at others" and I think that is supposed to be a big reveal but the plot it too incoherent to have reveals.
Karl Riefel goes on TV and says that most Norwegians can't laugh. Gee, I thought that was the Insert Nationality Here . Why has nobody figured this out by now?
Riefel organizes a "Just Laugh" Week. At the university, a poet opens with a line that rivals "I have a dream", or "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears,"
There's a clown playing a saxophone. That is a thing that happens in this movie.
Nobody laughs.
Karl Reifel wears a clown nose, spits out waters, and does many other things to make people laugh. Here's a tip: try doing something funny
Oh, now we have the moral:
Whatever that means.
There is a chorus of scream-laughing, presumably from the speech.
They walk off together and the movie acts as if there was a projector glitch and the picture cuts out. That's also pretty funny.
Sonnel comes onto the front of the screen and tells us to go because the movie is over and not to keep people waiting. Then he walks off.
He comes back on and tells us not to drag things out and to leave the theater. He turns off the light, and then yells at the technician. Two minutes of song and movie over.
This movie is about disability because, um, because it's about a man who can't laugh?
This has 225 votes on IMDB.
No comments:
Post a Comment