Bye Bye Monkey (1978)
Bye Bye Monkey (1978)
A Film by Marco Ferreri
DVD5 (VIDEO_TS) | NTSC 16:9 (720x480) | 01:53:05 | 4,26 Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: None
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Art-house | Italy, France
A Film by Marco Ferreri
DVD5 (VIDEO_TS) | NTSC 16:9 (720x480) | 01:53:05 | 4,26 Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: None
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Art-house | Italy, France
Lafayette (Gerard Depardieu), a young-ish misfit Frenchman and Nocello (Marcello Mastroianni), an older misfit Italian, live in a run-down section of New York City and are friends. Lafayette works for Flaxman (James Coco), an excitable antiquarian who owns and runs something called the "Roman Museum," by means of which he upholds the standards of a former age. Lafayette also works for a women's lib group, which one day decides to "rape" him to see how the shoe fits on the other foot. Rather than being much bothered, Lafayette starts a liaison with the woman who actually had sex with him. In this rambling tale, these men are shown to have great difficulty enduring intense emotions, and the situations that arise force them to confront this difficulty repeatedly.
IMDB
This film by Italian director Marco Ferreri (La Grande Bouffe) is his first English language film and is an unofficial spin-off to the 1976 remake of King Kong. While walking along a beach Gerard (Gerard Depardieu) and his friends come across Kong’s corpse and in its arms find a monkey which Gerard adopts.
Bye Bye Monkey (1978)
![Bye Bye Monkey (1978)]()
The back of the case describes Bye Bye Monkey as a “black comedy” and although it has a few laughs the film is more surreal and weird than what most people would consider an actual comedy. The films surrealness is its strongest aspect because the film being something we haven’t quite seen before, helps to keep the viewers attention during the first half of the film which suffers from nothing much happening.
Bye Bye Monkey (1978)
![Bye Bye Monkey (1978)]()
Before and after Gerard has his monkey, he wanders around interacting with seemingly random characters, none of whom are introduced to the audience. By the end of the film we learn a little about some of them but the seemingly random nature of the supporting cast can be at times very frustrating. If there was nothing surreal about the film, it would be easy for the film to completely loose viewers early on. Of course as the film progresses we learn who some, but not all, of the main characters are and an underlying theme begins to develop.
Bye Bye Monkey (1978)
![Bye Bye Monkey (1978)]()
The theme that runs throughout the film is about the different stages of families and attitudes towards families and growing up. Gerard settles down a bit after getting the monkey as a surrogate child and his relationship with his girlfriend gets more serious. Older characters are either sad that the younger generation won’t listen to them or pay them any attention as well as about getting old in general, or are so focused on the past they can’t properly grasp the present. The younger characters are either carefree like Gerard, or focused on rebelling against the older generations like the feminist theatre group. The film doesn’t follow the standard marriage character arc but rather has different characters stand in for the different stages and as they clash and interact the film tries, and mostly succeeds, to make points about growing up and intergenerational gaps.
Bye Bye Monkey (1978)
![Bye Bye Monkey (1978)]()
The films final quarter hour deserves some mention for being overblown and melodramatic compared to the rest of the film but in a really good way. It starts with a shocking turn of events that includes a genuinely disturbing image and ends with a fiery visual representation of inner anguish. Things get random and out of hand really fast and it’s definitely worth sticking with the film to see the last quarter hour.
Bye Bye Monkey (1978)
![Bye Bye Monkey (1978)]()
Overall, Bye Bye Monkey is more interesting than actually good. The biggest problem is that it doesn’t introduce us to the supporting characters and time that could have spent getting to know them was instead spent trying to figure out who they are. Although in places dull and slightly confusing and annoying, the film has enough surreal moments and a brilliantly over the top ending which makes it worth a watch.Jamassie, DVD Holocaust
Bye Bye Monkey (1978)
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