Customer Reviews

Rumba

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a French movie where not a word of French is spoken for the first 18 minutes! Words aren't needed as this very funny film uses sight-gags to make you laugh.

I picked up this movie not knowing what to expect. It turned out to be one of the most creative movies I have seen in recent times. It takes slapstick comedy (if you can call it that - I call it art!) to a whole new level. True - it is at-times surreal but the two actors (and the director) handle emotions so well, that even without much dialogue they succeed in keeping you hooked for the entire movie. The director does a fine job weaving the tale around situations that take some real absurd turns (for eg: the flaming fake leg scene). And yet... in the end it does not feel over-done. What keeps you going is not only the quirk characters but also the fine creative way of story-telling, in my opinion.

In terms of creativity, this movie was definitely off-the-charts and for that alone, this deserves at least 4 stars and gets a must-see recommendation from me. (Must add: Definitely not a movie for people that are used to standard fare that Hollywood churns out though.)

Like their earlier, even better 'L'Iceberg', this is an inventive throwback to silent films and physical comedies, directed, written and chiefly
performed by a talented trio of circus trained clowns.

It's complete with their trademark minimal dialogue and dark events that never keep the film from being light and funny. For example, near the start of the film, the two main characters are in a car crash; one loses a leg, the other his memory, but somehow it works being played for laughs.

As a whole, this didn't work quite as well as their 'L'Iceberg' for me - that had a more interesting, surreal plot to hang their routines on, and
more of their bits rose to the level of truly inspired, but this is still a sweet, funny, good-hearted film that cheerfully refuses to play by modern rules.

This was a very entertaining movie.

I enjoyed it so much that I decide to own it.

Disappointed
I bought the DVD Rumba because I enjoyed enormously the gags shown in an advertising short cut movie presentation. Taken independently the jokes are very good:
* A lesson of English to French speaking kids
* The end of the school
* A man trying to commit suicide by being hit by a vehicle
* Abel and Gordon entirely destroyed home by a fire leaving them without shelter under heavy rain
* Flowers sent to the sea and immediatly coming back by Gordon to commemorate Abel drowning.
The movie was becoming more and more boring: the mere addition of all theses gags does not make a 77 minutes movie.
The couple, Gordon and Abel, certainly enjoy their job but in anyway they cannot be compared to Jacques Tati, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Marx Brothers.