Content
The writing and acting in Funny Ha Ha is simply
marvelous. It is real and authentic. No one speaks eloquently
in this movie
period. They all speak like real people
do, with lots of "umms", "uuhhhs",
and "y'knows". This might seem like it would
be very annoying but it's done so authentically that you
feel like you're overhearing a conversation that a few
of your friends are actually having. Even voice mail messages
in the movie ramble on in the way that real people ramble
in their messages.
Now,
with the real world pacing, there are times that it threatens
to drag, but, for the most part, Bujalski deftly edits
away when silences become too ponderous or not enough
is occurring in a scene. While everyone in the film did
a great job of acting, there are two standout performances
from Kate Dollenmayer as the strangely unruffled Marnie
and Andrew Bujalski as the gently sweet and bumbling Mitchell.
With
all these great elements in content, it was saddening
that the ending for Funny Ha Ha turned out to be
so minimal. In one final conversation between Alex &
Marnie, the film simply stops. At first I thought that
Mr. Bujalski had chosen to completely omit an ending for
some fiendish private enjoyment. (It literally felt like
you had put coins into a special viewing machine that
let you peer into Marnie's life for 85 minutes and, at
the end of the time, the viewer just switched itself off.)
However,
after watching through the film another time and replaying
the final scene a few more times, I realized that there
was one comment that Alex makes that is almost completely
lost if you're not paying microscopic attention, due to
the fact that it is slurred together and much softer than
the rest of the audio. When you figure out what he's actually
said, then Marnie's response actually does give a note
of finality to the end.
While
it could be stated that this sort of lack-luster ending
fits Marnie's somewhat lack-luster life, I felt that it
downplayed--and actually cheapened--the simple elegance
Mr. Bujalski had accomplished in the film prior to this-the
simple elegance of reality. And while some may feel that
reality is chaos with no end and no beginning, there are,
in reality, always endings that can be highlighted. (Just
ask an older person to talk about their past, and you'll
find them mention half a dozen endings in their own lives
in a half hour conversation!) Moreover, in the film medium,
these endings need to be highlighted in order to give
a sense of conclusion in any form of narrative or documentary.