Funny Ha Ha

Most of my friends are sick of hearing me talk about Andrew Bujalski, so now dear readers, it’s your turn.  Andrew Bujalski makes the kind of films I would like to make.  They’re funny, low-fi and at the same time beautifully shot, with hand held cameras and a spare composition style reminiscent of Eric Rohmer.  His characters meander, fumbling with endless possibilities, not quite sure what to do with all that privilege their college educations have afforded them.  Their problems are problems of the heart, of communication, of trying to articulate their desires, of trying to be honest with one another while finding that in order to be kind, it’s easier to lie.

 

Funny Ha Ha (2002) was Bujalski’s first feature.  Marnie is 23 and making stumbling steps at life after college.  She is in love with Alex (Christian Rudder), but Alex isn’t in love with her.  The film begins with Marnie stumbling into a tattoo parlour, although she has no idea what kind of tattoo she wants.  She has been fired from her job, and takes up a temping position, where she meets Mitchell (Andrew Bujalski) a nice boy without much self-esteem, who immediately falls in love with her.  They fall into a stilted friendship, while Alex gets married to his ex-girlfriend Nina (Vanessa Bertozzi), and Dave (Myles Paige) who has a seemingly stable and loving relationship with Rachel (Jennifer Schaper), also finds himself attracted to Marnie.

While this sounds like the stock synopsis for the twenty-something relationship indie, Funny Ha Ha differentiates itself through its wandering dialogue and understated performances.  The characters are awkward and daggy, they dress as people I know really dress – in holey t-shirts, ill-fitting jeans, and worn down sneakers.  They have messy hair, and look just as unpolished when they dress up for work or a party.  Their conversations are stilted, and the jokes that are made to dampen the awkwardness of relating never quite succeed in filling in the lulls.  The acting is spare, with most of the emotion passed on through the flickering facial expressions and hand gestures.  Shot on 16mm, the grainy, high contrast qualities of the film stock mirror the uncomfortable period of becoming the characters are living through.

 

Time in Funny Ha Ha goes slowly.  Marnie’s life unfolds in a series of unprepared moments as she struggles to find out where it is she fits.  It’s not that she doesn’t know her own feelings, she just doesn’t know how to articulate or act on them.  Mitchell tries to act by pursuing Marnie even though he realizes she isn’t interested, resulting in a frustrating stalemate of a friendship.  In one scene Mitchell attempts to break the pace of the stagnant afternoon by throwing a bottle of beer off the balcony into the courtyard below, but the ensuing argument fails to illuminate the real source of tension and quickly trails off, leaving everything as vague as it was before.  In almost every situation, the characters find their emotions blanked with politeness, and avoidance assists in keeping the peace.  When Marnie runs into the recently married Alex and Nina in the supermarket, they fall into a banal conversation about eggplant, sidestepping Marnie’s obvious unease.  While their inner desires are exploding, outwardly the characters are stuck, paralysed by social niceties and too much choice.  This is reflected in the editing.  Interstitial time skips forward, in the gaps between the jump cuts hours, days or weeks have passed, but during the scenes time lags, and a few minutes can seem like hours.  It’s both a reflection of how the pace of life feels when you’re in your early twenties, and an assault on the speed and structure of Hollywood cinema. 

 

The film ends as it begins, in media res, with Marnie and Alex having lunch together in a park and making fun of a pair of nerdy boys playing frisbee.  It’s a truthful ending – life never presents conclusions like films often do.  Relationships and careers drift, successes come in unexpected ways, joys are fleeting and often missed, and all we can do is to just keep doing.