While many genres work on certain formulas and conventions, which can make some of them predictable and tedious in the wrong hands, perhaps no other genre is quite as elusive as comedy. Often said to be one of the hardest crafts to master, finding the right kind of irony or punchline can be quite tricky, many times resulting in features not clicking with audiences, but being appreciated more and more by later audiences. As many cultures have their own unique brand of comedy, Japan’s concept of the genre is perhaps one of the most hermetic, as it often refers to ideas, topics or themes which are exclusive to the country’s (pop) culture. In the early 2000s, a number of unique comedic features were released, with “Funky Forest: The First Contact”, a collaborative effort of directors Katsuhito Ishii, Hajime Ishimine and Shunichiro Miki being among the most interesting entries, which, thanks to Third Window Films, has just recently experienced it home video debut in the UK and is now being rediscovered by audiences.
Funky Forest: The First Contact is screening at Five Flavours
It is quite difficult to give a comprehensive summary or a glimpse of some sort into what is essentially an anthology feature. After a bizarre segment with the manzai duo The Mole Brothers giving a performance full of equally bizarre and unfunny jokes (despite them receiving frenetic applause by the audience), we observe the Guitar Brothers (consisting of Tadanobu Asano and Susumu Terajima) going about their daily business, with one of them trying to date pretty girls, the other one content on playing the guitar and their younger sibling basically being silent and eating food all the time. There is also Notti and Takefumi (played by Erika Nishikado and Ryo Kase), a young woman and her English teacher, who eventually end up dancing together.
Although it is perhaps a bit of a cliché, but you need to be in the right mood for a feature such as “Funky Forest”. The 150 minutes of running time are filled to the brim with various facets of Japanese comedy, from surrealist jokes and allusion to a stand-up comedy routine like the one by the Mole Brothers. There is also a healthy dose of deadpan humor, especially by Asano and Terajima who deliver the most outrageous and downright nonsensical lines with utmost sincerity, with the former’s songs being a highlight in that regard. However, this is more or less comedy for comedy’s sake, since those viewers expecting some kind of pay off will surely be disappointed, but at times highly entertained by the sheer silliness of the whole project.
Nevertheless, while the bizarre, the surreal and the silly elements of “Funky Forest” do have a certain level of appeal, considering the aforementioned running time and the unevenness of the whole “story”, it is also quite a tough watch. Given the three directors’ previous works, perhaps one of the best approaches is to view “Funky Forest” as a colorful and poignant look at what constitutes “Japanese-ness”, or at least what constitutes it. In many ways is it reminiscent of the kind of comedy Takeshi Kitano included in some of his less popular works such as “Getting Any?” or “Takeshis”, poking fun at popular culture, its silliness and shallow nature. Indeed, much like the famous actor/director in his projects, some of the characters in “Funky Forest”, especially the Guitar Brothers, seem more like caricatures of certain tropes, some of which ironically you can find in the actor’s body of work.
In the end, however, “Funky Forest: The First Contact” contains a unique brand of humor, which certainly is not for everyone and will likely make people turn it off after a while (or leaving the cinema even). At the same time you have to respect what directors Katsuhito Ishii, Hajime Ishimine and Shunichiro Miki were probably going for with their collaborative effort, to define an image of what Japanese pop culture is and poking fun at it in the process.
