Absurdistan playful
Absurdistan
Director: Viet Helmer
Stars: Maximilian Mauff, Kristyna Malerova
Classification: STC
Rating: ***
Absurdistan is a playful comedy combining visually sophisticated filmmaking, allegory, whimsy, and good old-fashioned dirty sex comedy to charming effect.
Set in the sort of broken down post-Soviet village that created Borat and Yakov Smirnoff, the film kicks into motion when the lone water supply to the village is cut off, causing the woman to hold a sex strike to get their men to address the problem. It’s a sweet little story that inspires more smiles and gentle chuckles than belly laughs, but makes up for it with inspired set design and cinematography as well as a gentle touch.
Maximilian Mauff and Kristyna Malerova star as a pair of young lovers who have known each other since infancy, but can’t consummate their love until their star signs cross in the cosmos (a date that just happens to occur in the middle of the local drought).
This leads to Maximilian trying to restore the waterline, while the other men in the village resort to failed panty raids and road trips to strip clubs. The humour is all very lewd and simplistic, but it’s done in such a lighthearted manner and with an almost fairly tale like tone that makes it impossible to ever be offended.
Director Veit Helmer was clearly influenced by silent comedy as long passages in the film amount to dialogue free slapstick sequences. Unfortunately this is the film’s main strength as well as its weakness. Absurdistan is old fashioned to a fault, containing few surprises and a few sub-Benny Hill physical gags.
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A pair of young lovers’ trials are used to comic effect in Absurdistan.
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