I’m a big fan of Albert Brooks. His humor is not for everybody. His last few films have been slight, but he still makes me laugh, and what more can you ask?
His new movie is Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World and that’s exactly what the story is. Brooks is sent to India and Pakistan by the U.S. Government in order to find out what makes Muslims laugh. An article on TNR Online by James Forsyth & Carolyn O’Hara (read here; sub. req.) rips the movie and Brooks apart, starting with the headline: Washington Liberals and Albert Brooks’s Idiotic Film: Humor Impaired. I’d like to compare some of the key points made with J. Hoberman’s review in The Village Voice (read here).
First, from TNR:
Brooks’s greatest moment of comedic potential falls completely flat. Seeing a dearth of comedy around him in New Delhi, he stages a one-man stand-up show to find out by trial and error what local residents find funny. It’s a chance for real fact-finding, the pivotal scene that could make the movie worthwhile. Instead, Brooks parades an array of tired routines before a stone-faced audience. It’s all predictably unfunny, and we never get to see what actually makes his audience crack up. We only know that Brooks bombs.
Then, from Hoberman:
Baffled by the local TV and defeated in his attempts at on-the-street interviews, Albert decides to organize a comedy concert—handing out flyers on the streets of Old Delhi (a most flavorsome location). In the movie’s lengthy set piece, Albert appears in a school auditorium, absurdly dressed in native garb to greet his supremely unresponsive audience with a resolution to discover “what makes you guys chuckle.” The act, partly derived from Brooks’s old routines, is doomed to bomb—all the more spectacularly once Albert moves into conceptual territory with fake ventriloquism and faux improv.
You can complain, but this type of humor should be unsurprising to anyone who’s seen any of Brooks’ movies. His characters are always losers who fail repeatedly. Unmet expectations are part of the game. For example, Lost in America, which promises a road trip across America that ends after the second stop. Mother focuses on John Henderson, who seems to be the world’s worst science fiction writer. Modern Romance shows a relationship that is clearly doomed; the lovers are finally brought together, only to split as the credits roll.
In the movie, Brooks sneaks into Pakistan and finally finds a receptive audience: a group of hash-smoking local comedians. TNR says, “Brooks is thrilled that he’s finally found a cooperative audience. But is this comedy in the Muslim world? Or is it just one more scene that revolves around Brooks?” Hoberman points out: “Stoned, even the most terrifying Muslims love Brooks’s lame routines, and that’s all he really wants. ‘I killed, everything worked!’ he exults.”
If Forsyth & O’Hara’s piece is accurate, and Brooks really does feel that his film has something to teach us about relations with the Muslim world, then maybe he is overreaching. I haven’t seen it yet, and I’m not qualified politically to say. What I can do is judge the movie — based on reviews and the trailer — as an Albert Brooks work. It looks amusing, but not a home run.
In the end, A.O. Scott in The N.Y. Times says:
…Brooks, caught up in conversation, walks right past the Taj Mahal without noticing it. There is some resonance in the conceit of an American so wrapped up in himself that he misses the reality of the rest of the world even when right there, larger than life, all but staring him in the face.
Still, making the joke at his own expense doesn’t quite get Brooks off the hook. “Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World” is really about finding Albert Brooks wherever you look, and leaving the Muslim world to fend for – or laugh at – itself.
Hoberman agrees:
In the end, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World is a satire of American solipsism. (The perfect accompanying short subject would be a précis of Karen Hughes’s Middle Eastern goodwill mission.) Brooks plays a character so self-absorbed he visits the Taj Mahal and manages not to notice it. As the film ends, who can fail to appreciate the care with which he steps on his own apocalyptic punchline? That’s the joke.
There’s a bit in the movie where two officials say, “You’re looking for comedy in the Muslim world?” And then they laugh, the kind of laugh you give when you’ve just seen a fool. Maybe the title of the film itself is the biggest joke?
You can see the trailer for the movie here.
UPDATE: Almost 800 words, and did I ever get to a point? Thinking about it later, maybe the point is that it would be better to approach this as an Albert Brooks movie and not a political act. This morning, I read Stephen Hunter’s review in the Washington Post and it summed up my attitude perfectly. It begins:
I sometimes think Albert Brooks would do better if he’d aim for a bigger audience: This movie seems to be aimed at an audience of one. Me.
Maybe some others out there feel they get it, too, but it’s such a slithery, incandescent thing he’s selling, so fragile and gossamer, here one second and gone forever, beyond recall, the next. To describe it is almost to destroy it.
You can get a nice summary of coverage over at GreenCine Daily.
UPDATE 2011: This post rambled. I hadn’t seen the movie when I wrote it, which didn’t help. The bit described above, the ventriloquism bit? It’s a classic routine Brooks did in the Seventies. It’s funny, because it’s bad. The idea of a Brooks hero who sets out on a grand mission and then fails is a classic Brooks thing as well.
And, c’mon. The improv bit is hilarious.