Looking for Comedy in a Muslim World

 

 

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This quirky comedy had the potential to be pretty funny and/or actually say something about Muslim culture, and I was quite disappointed to find it met the first goal only partially and failed abysmally at the second -- especially since the film spent most of its time in India, a nation I find fascinating (while it is by and large a Hindu nation, India does have a very significant Muslim population). Frankly, I don't know what this film actually wanted to accomplish. Stereotypes abound in the representation of the two foreign cultures, Albert Brooks spends a lot of time being conspicuously unfunny, and all but one of the secondary characters are without any substance whatsoever. Albert Brooks' sardonic wit can be funny when he's complaining, but that's about all this movie has going for it.

Why is Brooks Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, anyway? Well, a special committee headed by politician/actor Fred Thompson, working under the auspices of the State Department, has asked him to serve his country by helping the American government understand what makes your typical Muslim tick. Find out what makes Muslims laugh, as the argument goes, and you'll go a long way toward understanding them. That's why they're asking Brooks, a comedian, to travel to India and Pakistan, spend a month figuring out what makes the people laugh, and write a 500 page report on it. You'll hear a lot about this 500 page report, as Brooks goes on and on about the challenge of it, especially as time goes on and he learns almost nothing remotely useful or relevant. Thank goodness for Sheetal Sheth, who plays Maya, the assistant/secretary Brooks hires after arriving in India. Sadly, however, the script wastes a golden opportunity to reveal something about the life of an independent woman in Indian society, relegating Maya all too often as the only person in the entire film who finds Albert Brooks remotely funny.

I'll admit that I'm not familiar with the comedic work of Albert Brooks, although I do appreciate the type of sarcastic dry humor he seems to specialize in -- but I don't see how even his biggest fan can find his big "comedy show" in India funny. He actually opens with a Gandhi joke, which is not the best way to win over his audience. At least they didn't have any trouble finding a crowd who could sit there stone-faced throughout the routine, as this show would be a total bomb in any country, in any language. Having counted on the big show to discover what Indians find funny, Brooks' mission is all but doomed by this point. And forget about Pakistan -- Brooks has to sneak across the border just to spend a few hours with a group of "budding Pakistani comedians."

If the film has any point at all -- and I don't think it does -- it might be this: even our best-intentioned attempts to understand foreign cultures are too misguided or just plain stupid to ever have a prayer of succeeding -- and sometimes exacerbate problems that we are too insensitive to understand or even recognize. Even though Looking for Comedy in the Muslim Word is mildly funny from time to time, it is never the least bit insightful, and that makes it a pretty disappointing failure in my eyes.

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