Escola do Riso

Writing comedy is hard, especially, if you have to face an authoritarian, ex-soldier censor officer who never laughed all his life and was proud of it. That's the premise of this extraordinary movie which is set in Japan during WWII. It is originally a play, so we can hope for tons and tons of witty dialogs between the young playwright and the censor officer. The former is struggling to get approval of his next comedy script while the latter is determined to close down all theater performances in the city, simply because "…it is inappropriate to get a few laughs during this time of war…" Then, suddenly, the movie turns into a lesson of how to write a good comedy as the censor officer keeps criticizing the script and demands changing. There are lots of warm and funny moments, but toward the ending, it suddenly becomes tense and heartbreaking. It almost becomes a tragedy. The whole movie is basically played by those two characters. Other characters can easily be extras. The setting is very minimalist as nearly 80 percent of the movie is located inside the interrogation room. The message we can get from this movie is that there is always comedy inside anybody's life, whether you want it or not. It is no use denying it. Just as it is no use denying not to like this incredible movie once you see it.