Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
Reviewed by
Raj S. Rangarajan
NEW YORK: A tongue-in-cheek breezy short film that has spoof written all over it from the title to the content to the final scene. Whether one is American or Canadian, Indian or Pakistani, if you have a sense of humor and can laugh at yourself, you will enjoy the movie.
Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World is the story of what happens when the U.S. Government sends stand-up comic and actor Albert Brooks (Lost in America, Taxi Driver, 1976) to India and Pakistan to find out what makes the over 300 million Muslims laugh. Fred Thompson, former senator from Tennessee who now plays a judge on NBC’s one-hour television show Law & Order, who plays himself, suggests that Brooks should help in a diplomatic effort for the State Department. The carrot for Brooks: possibility of a Medal of Freedom from the President though the downside is, he has to produce a 500-page report for the U.S. government. The film is a comedic view of America’s approach toward other cultures.
Accompanied by two state department employees Stuart (John Carroll Lynch – Dinner with Friends, The Drew Carey Show) and Mark (Jon Tenney – Crime & Punishment, Buying The Cow), Brooks lands in Delhi and after some preliminary interviews, appoints Maya (Sheetal Sheth – ABCD, American Chai) as his assistant for the project. Brooks launches his quest by asking people on the street, “What makes you laugh?” With responses that hover between pathetic and lukewarm (one Indian woman tells Brooks, “Don’t touch me!”), and since he does not find any comedy clubs in India the comedian decides to hold a show – the Big Show – in Delhi.
Brooks later drives into what is supposed to be Pakistan in a clandestine, nocturnal meeting arranged by Stuart and Mark where he continues his quest. It’s all very spooky and hilarious when brawny Pakistanis wait for the punch lines. The audience waits with trepidation if Brooks is likely to be assaulted. To add to the intrigue Brooks has a meeting with the newspaper Al Jazeera. Scenes at the newspaper office and at the Immigration Department in Delhi are authentic through it is tough to believe that so many people in the Big Show audience put up straight faces when Brooks tried to make people laugh. The Pakistan border crossing resembled a temporary fence in your backyard. Some throwaway lines identify Brooks as the “Kissinger of comedy” while someone clarifies, Muslim is not a fabric.
Whether you are Muslim, Jewish or Hindu or whatever your faith, it doesn’t matter as long as you do not take the movie seriously. Where satire does not hesitate to touch on religion or politics and where contemporary events can be approached with a tinge of humour, director, writer and actor Albert Brooks has done a fairly good job.
To a question on how difficult it was to get permission to shoot a movie in India, Brooks responded, “I met with government officials, told them the story, gave them a 45-page outline” but “what they don’t like is when films make fun of their traditions or religions.” To shoot in a mosque in Delhi, Brooks had to meet with the Imam. The crew shot at the Taj Mahal too. “It was a great challenge having 800 people a foot away from your lens staring into the camera,” says Brooks. In India there were no street closures or block lock-ups to help secure a location. Producer Herb Nanas (Rocky III, Eye of the Tiger) says, “You can’t stop life in India, and whether it is people – or in some extreme cases, cows, elephants or monkeys – moving through your shot, we had to incorporate them into the scene and embrace the uniquely crowded environment.”
While some Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans and others that constitute the South Asian diaspora may not be on the same wavelength as Americans when it comes to America-based humor, an English-knowing moviegoer is likely to enjoy the farce. It depends on how many of us do laugh at ourselves? Shorts such as Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World would definitely help – specially after 9/11 – if we have open minds and as long as religion does not obsessively sway the equation.
In the finale Brooks is dressed in a typically Indian silk crème coloured tunic with gold sequined trim over matching pants and beaded Indian slippers. His return to his roots in stand-up comedy was perhaps a historic moment for him personally, specially with his dummy Danny also ranting in sartorial unison.
Albert Brooks wrote, directed and stars in Looking for Comedy in a Muslim World, a Warner Independent Pictures release.
[Raj S. Rangarajan is a New York based freelance writer. He covers trend stories on art, travel and lifestyles and reviews books, films and plays for media based in New York, California, Toronto, and India.]
