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Bananas is pure chaos, and it's hilarious.
by Yahoo! Movies User (movies profile)
Jul 13, 2007
4
of
5 people found this review helpful
While I don't care for his more recent offerings, Woody Allen's old works are wonderful. Such is the case with Bananas.
Back in the 50's and 60's, the U.S. government, in the war on communism, made some rather bad alliances throughout Latin America (actually, that's putting it nicely. In fact, they overthrew many governments, and installed their own puppet regimes. There, I feel better). These Banana Republics were run by awful dictators, who used 'communist insurgency' as an excuse to rule with an iron fist.
But hey, we're supposed to be talking about a comedy. Bananas opens with the Wide World of Sports crew (including Howard Cosell) giving us a play-by-play account of the assassination of the president of San Marcos, followed by the takeover by General Vargas.
Woody Allen is a product tester with a really poor love life. He falls in love with an activist, who is protesting the present San Marcos government. He attends rallies, discusses vacuous philosophy, and generally does all he can to attract this woman. However, she ultimately finds him boring and immature, so she leaves him. Heartbroken, Allen heads for San Marcos. A string of events lead him into the presidency there, incurring the wrath of the U.S. government.
For anyone familiar with silent comedy and the Marx Brothers, this film is a treasure trove of homages. An early product-testing sequence finds Allen in the same predicament as Chaplin in Modern Times. Another scene, involving a snakebit woman who finds plenty of volunteers to suck the poison out, recalls Harpo Marx chasing women. The hapless jokester who becomes a ruler is lifted from Duck Soup. In fact, once the film gets going, it has the chaotic feel of a Marx Brothers film.
It's also got Allen's trademarks, though here they were new. He plays a neurotic loser looking for love, which is his stock character. His tortured relationship with the activist will arise again as well. Add references to Bergman and silent films, and you've got the Woody Allen prototype film.
And this is what I don't like about Woody. His early films showed the promise that led to his masterpieces of the late 70's-early 80's, but after that, he got stuck; he lost that innovative touch to experiment that made his old films so good.
But Bananas is pure chaos, and it's hilarious. His comedic genius, however derivative of his influences, is present in spades. His comedic timing is spot on, something that can't be accomplished by mere imitation. The writing is terrific and very funny, poking fun at pseudo-intellectuals, revolutionaries, love and politics with equal fervor.
So, if you've wondered why so many people hold Woody Allen in such high regard because you've only seen his most recent works, then I urge you to watch Bananas. Only then will you understand. |
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