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Funny Asia
This year the focus of the “And everybody’s laughing…” section concentrates on Asian comedies which are finding it hard to reach Italian screens, but not for much longer! The comedy that comes from Asia is becoming increasingly “cult”, with Italian blogs and sites wholly dedicated to Asian blockbusters – and here I’m not just talking about Bollywood, because China, Japan, South Korea and Thailand are also specializing in films for entertainment, representing fine competition for the USA on films as well. Our choices for this edition include three films that are very distant from one another.
We have brought to Milan the most successful Chinese film ever, Lost in Thailand by Zheng Xu. Made with a low budget, the film has broken the record of Avatar, earning almost two hundred million dollars, making it the highest takings ever for a Chinese film in China. The mode, however, is clearly Hollywood, almost a remake, with a recipe skilfully adapted to Chinese taste, of the two hilarious films by Todd Phillips The Hangover 2 (filmed in Thailand) and Due Date, but without the provocation and politically incorrectness of the genius of American comedy, which in China would be promptly censored. Zheng Xu takes Phillips’ plot of the eccentric, naïve and clumsy but at the same time brilliant character who hinders and hampers the slows down the journey and pace of the businessman, driving him crazy, with an ending of reconciliation where the businessman regains some humanity. The elements of success are: a road movie, misunderstandings, action, wacky lines, slapstick, eccentric characters and in this case the addition of wuxia (martial arts). Lost in Thailand is a film that pleases everyone, and with Bingbing in little more than a walk-on part, it also secures the public of the fans of the beautiful Chinese star... So there is nothing new or original in this Chinese comedy, but entertainment is guaranteed.
Going on to India, we present for the first time in Italy a Bollywood comedy with a strong element of subversion, the sensual and provocative Aiyyaa by Sachin Kundalkar (who has twice won the Indian National Award). The beautiful curvaceous Indian superstar Rani Mukherjee enjoys breaking two major taboos of Indian morals: showing female desire and the physical attraction of a north Indian woman for a beautiful and sultry boy from the south of the sub-continent, all with a dash of screwball characters, trash elements, wild dancing and beautiful music. It is superfluous to say that in India the film was highly controversial, appreciated more by young and female audiences rather than male ones, perhaps a bit frightened by the main character’s initiatives, although the most flirtatious scenes never descend into vulgarity thanks to the self-irony and light touch of the highly talented actress. Behind the originality of the choice of the script, there is the genial and revolutionary Anurag Kashyap, who produced Gangs of Wasseypur, and his perceptive ability to find in films those elements of reality which, whilst remaining in the field of comedy, bring us very much down to earth can also be recognized. I am thinking here of the rubbish bin next to the main character’s house which makes her dream of fleeing to an imaginary world, the world of Bollywood. The film therefore activates all the senses, including that of smell!
A great leap, not only geographic but also of comic and filmic language, takes us to Iran with a comedy, The Orange Suite, by one of the most successful in the country directors, Dariush Mehrjui, a representative of the Iranian New Wave and a close observer of the discomfort of the urban middle-class of the capital, Tehran. With a cinematic satire, Mehrjui makes his contribution with irony and lightness to the ecological cause, imagining a photo-reporter – the alter ego of the director – who abandons his camera to pick up a broom and join the army that is to save the city, the streetsweepers. A green parable that is also a wink at the fashions that come to Iran from the West, or rather from the East in this case, as the obsession for cleanliness is triggered off by reading a book on Chinese Feng Shui. The tendency of Iranian cinema in comedy as well also remains focused on more on art films which are more realistic and social and which leave the country only to take part in international festivals.
Once again we thank Gino and Michele for their collaboration on this section. A comedian from Zelig will introduce each film.
Alessandra Speciale |
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