Search - The Complete Black Books on DVD

To be anti-social as a social art

Jacques COULARDEAU | OLLIERGUES France | 06/07/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The English have a genre no one else has anywhere in the world. They call that comedies on television. Short less than half an hour episodes of situational humor positioned in one particular social niche. In this case it is a marginal book store held by a social drop out who hates all other human beings and yet cannot survive without constant contact with some of these strange animals we call human beings. Unable to love, unable to have any sentimental life with any person that would approach a gender definition. Yet he recuperate in his book store that becomes a haven for stray cats, though he hates cats, a flunked and failed accountant who is fired from his job because he is kind of abnormal for the job, both in looks and behavior. And he has a neighborly relation with the next door shop lady who is soon going to get out of business and remain behind like an errant animal. And the three of them are going to live the daily life of this book store. But it is nothing close to a social drama or anything social. It is nothing like a soap opera or even a sitcom. Those are more American, more normal, banal and less out of the way, funny or strange. The fun in American sitcoms or soap operas comes from the wit of the characters. The fun of English comedies comes from the situation and the slight details in the behavior, appearance, reactions of the characters that make them weird. There is always something unforeseen and unforeseeable because so much out of the way that we could not even think of it as being possible. Each episode has one unifying element that may get some follow up in the next episode, but there is no obligation. So the episode is not supposed to end on any suspense but on a punch line that signs the end as inescapable. And that final touch or detail is so amazing that you can only sit there flabbergasted and laughing like a baboon in the jungle shade. Have you ever heard one? Very weird, the laughter of the baboon. If you haven't I would advise you to go fast to some jungle and hear it, record it and then multiply it one thousand time into a two or three hour long baboon laughter. That should make you both happy and sad for some time and give you some pleasant dreams. Just like Black Books if you can put your hands or your dirty grubby fatty fingers on the series.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
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