Film: “Sad Jokes”: The Human Comedy

»What do you call a sad coffee? A Depresso.« Were you at least able to smile slightly at this joke from Fabian Stumm’s second feature film? Have you often laughed at absurd situations that others might not find funny? If so, the deeply human comedy “Sad Jokes” might be for you.

In the prologue, ordinary people tell sad, funny jokes in a studio setting. Canned laughter can be heard off-camera, which is known to increase the audience’s willingness to giggle at the punch line. You could often use it in certain life situations that seem like a bad joke.

The sad parade of jokes definitely sets the mood perfectly for Stumm’s cinematic kaleidoscope of emotions. The absurdity of life – and also of making art – becomes particularly clear in the film’s two most exhilarating scenes, in which Joseph, played by the director himself, pitches an idea for his new film to his producer Gero (Godehard Giese).

A comedy? Gero likes comedies – says with a wink “if they’re good”. Afterwards, Joseph has to watch in confusion as the smug producer feeds his huge dog pre-chewed salami. Delicious.

At the next meeting, several episodes later, Gero finally read Joseph’s script. It’s about a man who suffers from automatonophobia, which is the fear of large dolls – or in this case, statues.

However, the producer doesn’t find Joseph’s script funny at all, but rather murky, black, hopeless and written without empathy. »Comedy is the supreme discipline. A lot of people are biting their teeth into it,” he concludes patronizingly.

But Fabian Stumm, who has already delivered a drama with comedic elements with “Bones and Names” and who also financed his second film solely with his own money and this time also with an advance from the distributor, has mastered this genre like no other German filmmaker. Provided you get involved with his humor, which oscillates between absurdity and silliness, and have a sense for autofictional meta-levels. Stumm names Lubitsch, Loriot, Truffaut and Chaplin as his role models, which is evident in the film. Eric Rohmer is also explicitly mentioned in his comedy. His characters also always struggle with everyday problems with a certain ease.

The Munich Film Festival honored Stumm’s comedy with two prizes: the New German Cinema Promotion Prize for the best director and the “Fipresci” Prize from international film critics.

His gay Joseph has completely different worries: Sonya (Haley Louise Jones), with whom he is raising a child, initially runs away from the clinic, simply wanting to stop her depression treatment and be there for her son Pino. This superbly acted, touching and frightening scene is – like many others – shot in a single tableau-like camera angle, so that you feel like a secret observer on Joseph’s kitchen chair.

Often the actor friends with whom Stumm filmed his second low-budget production only have one or two scenes to demonstrate their skills. And everyone delivers with relish. Whether it’s Anneke Kim Sarnau, who gets really excited in a scene with two broken arms while taking painkillers in the hospital, or Marie Lou Sellem and Anne Haug, who fight as a newly in love actress couple at Joseph’s premiere party. It makes you want to watch many scenes a second and third time.

This also applies to the sex initiation scene with the nude model Dominik (Knut Berger), who Joseph once dates. Of course the baby monitor intervenes properly. After all, Joseph has to look after Pino alone at the moment. Every parent can relate to this situation. Slapstick is very important in the film. And if you even get your finger painfully caught in a snack machine. Piano music sounds like it’s in a silent film – and you can’t help but grin.

“Life is what happens while you’re making other plans” – you have to think about this saying from John Lennon many a time. You never know what will happen next in Stumm’s episodic film.

There is a crazy goosebumps moment spoken in Swedish – you can also hear English and Italian in the film – which gives it an additional universality: Joseph’s painting teacher Elin (Ulrica Flach), who wanted to be an actress as a child and make people cry, comes for Joseph’s sake Joan of Arc’s final monologue emerges from the depths of her memory. It says, “Life is more than being dead as a mouse.” This sensitivity to perceive life with all its senses, which tends to be absurd, is also conveyed in Stumm’s comedy. We look forward to him gently and cleverly reminding us of this again in his next film.

»Sad Jokes«: Germany 2024. Director and screenplay: Fabian Stumm. With: Fabian Stumm, Haley Louise Jones, Justus Meyer. 96 minutes, playing in the cinema.