OSS 117: Lost In Rio

As I was talking with two friends about this film at our seats as the credits rolled, the woman in front of me said, "The previous one in the series was even funnier."

That was hard for me to imagine. During the screening of this film the theater was filled with raucous laughter so consistently that it seemed like the film has a laugh track. But not all the laughter was for the same reasons, which might have left us exhausted by the time the outtakes rolled along side the credits.

We laughed because of pratfalls and silliness. We laughed with awkwardness because of the hard-boiled nature of the misogyny, racism, and arrogance of the man we're watching deconstruct the fascination we have with James Bond and the like. It was a more sophisticated version of a lampoon movie, and though it was over-the-top, it was French, so it felt different than other films of this type.

There were a couple of things I liked a lot about the movie, besides the gorgous setting in Rio. I loved the homage to two Hitchcock classics, Vertigo and North By Northwest in the climactic scene. I won't ruin it for you, but let's just say that the French came up with the word homage, and it was as if they owned the concept as well. I also nearly had an aneurysm laughing about a couple of exceptionally subtle moments of humor. The first was a slow-moving chase scene in the hospital (so funny--my wife would love it). The second was a series of events which put him in a tux and car later in the film because of a "gardener" who left them behind.

It was a film which got the second-most loud ovation of my festival so far when it ended, and surely illicited the most laughs. It's not a film for those easily offended, unless you can get the fact that they're actually poking the thing which might be offensive to you squarely in the eye. Much of the humor is edgy and dark. But humor is often a healthy way to slay the sort of evil with this comedic autopsy laid bare. It reminds me of how my Mother used dark humor to cope so effectively with over 30 surgeries and chemotherapy--a genius coping mechanism that invigorates the living so that fear and sadness might not destroy our lives.

Now I want badly to see the prequel, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest Of Spies. Is it possible that a film could make me laugh for so many reasons again, with even more success? Well, a man can hope for another transcendent comedy to revitalize ones humanity. *added to Netflix queue*

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1167660/