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Fiasco: A Netflix Comedy Series
A Classic Farce on Filmmaking or Just Plain Bonkers?
I stumbled upon this seven-episode comedy series a couple of weeks ago with no idea as to what to expect.
What surprised me was the number of times I laughed out loud or found myself giggling throughout.
Of all the film genres, comedy is probably the most subjective. What one person finds hilarious can leave another with a completely stoned face.
Thus, what other people make of Fiasco will be interesting, but I loved it so will provide my view on the series and let you decide whether it is your sort of thing.
Fiasco is a French comedy. A mockumentary where a behind-the-scenes film crew is capturing filmmaker Raphaël Valande’s directorial film debut which pays homage to his grandmother who was a member of the French Resistance.
Things go wrong from the very start with mishaps, misunderstandings, and an unknown member of the crew trying to sabotage the whole film. It is not helped by the nervous and unassertive Valande whose decisions inadvertently cause the shoot to jump from one disaster to another. These include him trying to convince the lead female actress to go full method style and giving into his family interferences who insist that a friend of the family is the lead actress’s stuntwoman.
Initially, I expected the humour to be mostly in slapstick form and yes the series does contain several slapstick moments but we also get much of the hilarity in the dialogue. In saying that there is a hilarious physical scene where Valande and his friend are trying to get rid of some evidence as a result of him being responsible for his family member’s friend losing a foot in a stunt accident.
At this point, it has to be said that as the series is a French production it comes with English subtitles but you have the option to watch it with English dubbing. However, for me the subtitles lose none of the humour so I would stick to that.
I digress for a minute, but I have recently been irritated by many of Netflix’s foreign series defaulting to English dubbing. I don’t know whether the dubbing voices they use are proper actors, but they just don’t fit with the acting and in all cases, it…
