MovieChat Forums > Den skaldede frisør (2012) Discussion > Not sure if people get this, but it's me...

Not sure if people get this, but it's meant to be funny

posted 10 years ago by sygtnok
7 replies | jump to latest

As a Dane I've been wondering if non-danish (or non-scandinavians) get that it is meant to be funny. All the extreme behaviour of the husband Leif, the sister to the dead wife and so on are meant to be really funny according to Danish ideas. I laughed through much of the film. It's meant to be so absurd, so embarrassing, so unlucky and so on, that you can either laugh or cry and in Denmark, you laugh.

Just thought I would point this out for those foreigners watching this movie and thinking about it, you can properly enjoy it without getting the jokes, but in order to understand the film, you need to understand that it's meant to be funny.

[–] martyr2566 10 years ago

Thanks for this insight into the film-- very interesting!

[–] hmarote 9 years ago

I am from paraguay, south america. I laughed a lot too, of course it meant to be funny, it is a romantic comedy. Cinema is an international languaje and funny is funny no matter in what country you are.

[–] gmansi 9 years ago

Uruguay here and I laughed too on a few scenes.

[–] sygtnok 9 years ago

Great to hear! Yes, cinema is an international language, but humor can sometimes be very different in different regions and in Denmark, we sometimes find that some cultures, including many more political correct swedes and norwegians, don't understand our humor and jokes because they are too rough, offensive or morbid and that many people think that its meant to be taking serious. But I'm very happy to hear that you share this great form of humor with us :)

[–] Hans_VanDerKraan 9 years ago

Just saw this movie on tv.

Indeed, thank you very much for pointing the nature of Danish humor.

I thouroughly didn't enjoy the movie as there seemed nothing funny about it. Cheating on your wife is that extreme behaviour? Well it is pretty bad ethically, but how many men actually do it? If every cheating husband pays me a dime I can live comfortably for the rest of this life and during my next reincarnation.

Is the behaviour of the bridegroom extreme? A young man trying to come to terms with his (bi)(homo)(sexuality)? Plus the aggrevation of an absent father?

Leif trying to patch up his marriage with a sea of roses, seems like a desperate men realising that he will be alone as the fling with this young thing will not last.

Absurd, yes was the acceptance of Ida that Leif took his new flame to the wedding. However much you want to avoid trouble at your daughters wedding, any wife with a modicum of self esteem would have scratched his eyes out or givin' it a good try anyway. A well placed kick in the groin would also do, even if it only happened behind the bushes not to scare of the other guests.

Anyway, in general people do the strangest thing when trying to keep up appearances.

"unlucky" Laughing about someone being unlucky? Schadenfreude? Leedvermaak? Ondsindet fornøjelse (Correctly spelled, I hope), Glee? Plaisir malin? You could try to understand why you feel pleasure while watching sombody else's misery. What is the relationship with jalousie and what has justification to do with it? It almost seems to me like a psychological band-aid/plaster on a psychological wound.

BTW, if a movie is "meant to be funny" does not equal "actually being (universally) funny".

But then again, dear reader, Your Mileage Surely Varies from mine.
Salut!

[–] przgzr 9 years ago

If you expect a comedy from the start you can make a distinction to events not taking them seriously or literally. So this is not laughing at human misery but at the way this misery was presented. Surely, if the event becames to similar to something bad that happened to you it will probably fail in making you laugh, but the majority of other people will accept it.

Also, the authors of the movies make, or at least they should make for certain audience. Some make it for festival juries - yes, it is also a kind of audience but not a very numerous one. The others make it for average public, and it seems to be logical that it is the public of his country, people who share his culture. Therefore it can have problems with being understood and/or accepted in other countries and cultures, but it should be irrelevant: the author has his roots, he belongs to his nation, and it is normal that he understand them and can expect to be understood in return. If the movie isn't extremely local targeted, it is very likely that people from other countries that belong to similar cultures would also find at least some common feelings, messages, jokes.

The problem is with those authors who, either by their own will or by pressure of producents, make movie that would be understood by all audiences and all cultures (so having this big audience it would bring a lot of money). This is typical in modern Hollywood movies, especially comedies - they don't have roots and don't have soul, they are pale and bloodless, they don't target anybody and don't belong to anybody. I maybe won't understand all the aspects of certain country's humor (or tragedy, or...) but I will understand that it exists and surely appreciate it more that have the lack of it in movie made for everybody. I must tell their producers that they didn't manage to make a movie for everybody, because they failed at least one person - me.

[–] ReganRebecca 8 years ago

Canadian here and yeah, I thought it was super funny. Paprika Stine's character was hilarious, especially the way she kept making fun of Ida's family when she was just as tacky and over the top as the worst of them.