MovieChat Forums > Rundskop (2011) Discussion > Weird use of humor?

Weird use of humor?

posted 11 years ago by drnutkin
5 replies | jump to latest

Did anyone else feel like the injections of humor in this movie were kind of out of place? The Walloon mechanics seemed like they were in a completely different movie. The childhood friend (grown-up version) was in a similar although less cartoonish vein. Did this aspect of the movie work for anyone? I just feel like once you've committed to making a movie about a character whose life is this bizarre and this bleak you can't have someone farting on a voicemail. Maybe this is part of a larger problem I and other people had with the contrast between the compelling character study and the (for me) not so compelling crime plot - the tones were really different for each. I haven't seen/read any interviews with the director but I briefly saw something with the main actor where he said that they worked on the story for years and years, which makes the disjointedness all the more surprising to me.

[–] elleveutlecoq 11 years ago

The farting was truly wierd but the mechanics were ok in my view.

[–] chicago85 11 years ago

Shakespeare used comedy relief to break tension in his dramas. I remember Michael Keaton in "As you like it" as an example. The Coehn Brothers use comedy all the time like in Fargo, Barton Fink and Burn After Reading, etc

I watched part of the commentary and one example involved the Waloon mechanics. There is dislike between the Walloons and Flemish people in Belgium. They don't speak the same language among other major differnces. The mechanics understood little of what was said to them by the killers.

One of them found the bullet hole and said something about it after the killers had just left. The other one said "yeah, two of them." The French word for bullet hole he used sounded (in their dialect) like the word for A--hole. The other thought he meant the two men. The other then said "no a real bullet hole" and showed him.

[–] psdhart 10 years ago

French word for bullet hole he used sounded (in their dialect) like the word for A--hole

Indeed, but it is standard French (trou de balle is slang as you say for a-hole, but today people will say trou du cul)

[–] nicklpool 10 years ago

I agree - it jarred and (momentarily) deflated the tension.

It almost seemed like a misjudged 'Lock Stock' or 'Snatch' echo in an otherwise devastating film.

[–] PoppyTransfusion 10 years ago

I enjoyed the injections of humour especially as it plays to the tensions within Belgium between the Flemish and Francophones.

The dvd I have has a 'making of' extra on which the director likens his film to Shakespeare's tragedies where the use of comedic characters heightens and intensifies the tragedy. I think he achieves this.

what a season
to be beautiful
without a reason