Laugh at your own Risk- Dark Humor

Woody Allen with Scarlett Johanssen and Hugh Jackman in Scoop

Humor derived out of unpleasant and disturbing circumstances can be called dark humor.... It could be disgusting and sardonic to many.... Dark humor is displeasing enough to push all those unease buttons in any normal person, but humorous enough to induce an untimely laugh... It is neither intense nor deep, but falls on a thin line between offending and disturbing... Lots of Woody Allen (Oscar-winning chronicler of urban neuroses- according to Barney Stinson in "I heart New Jersey" episode ;-)) movies have such dark elements... In the movie Scoop, Sid Waterman (played by Allen) claims that he loves London (and all its Indian food), except that the driving is on the wrong side {Referring to London traffic driving on the left- Like in India and many other former British colonies}... He even claims that every time he drives a car in London, he is convinced that he is going to die in a crash... and he does die so in the movie... But there are no scenes / dialogues of mourning there after but only a funny sequence showing Sid playing some magic tricks on the Reaper's ship with a shadowy image of the Grim Reaper** himself... How satirical... How outlandish... How hilarious.... 

Jim Carrey as Count Olaf

Novel based Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, has a warning narration in the beginning, where a little elf is shown happily dancing and then suddenly out of the blue, you hear the grim voice of Lemony Snicket: "I'm sorry to say that this is not the movie you will be watching. The movie you are about to see is extremely unpleasant. If you wish to see a film about a happy little elf, I'm sure there is still plenty of seating in theatre number two. However, if you like stories about clever and reasonably attractive orphans, suspicious fires, carnivorous leeches, Italian food and secret organizations, then stay, as I retrace each and every one of the Baudelaire children's woeful steps. My name is Lemony Snicket, and it is my sad duty to document this tale." ... Immediately it strikes you then that you are in dark territory... Don't ask me where the fun part is!! Jim Carrey plays the villainous Count Olaf and he doesn't disappoint as always...

Meg Ryan in Serious Moonlight

A more recent Serious Moonlight, shows  Louise (Meg Ryan) hiring a thief to rob her house so that her  straying husband, Ian stays with her... And a bulk of the movie, starting from Ian resenting Louise, to pitying her and finally re- discovering his love for her happens in a bathroom... Pitifully dark and ridiculous.... 

 

Anjaana Anjaani

I consider even Anjaana Anjaani as an attempt at dark comedy... Though there was nothing offending about the movie, it quite cynically elaborates on suicidal techniques... Probably as Indian audience, we are accustomed to the fact that neither the hero nor the heroine dies in most of the mainstream Indian commercial cinema, so we couldn't find anything disturbing when PC or RK improvise on their comical suicidal theories... Any-case it does become eligible for a comedy with dark undertones.... 

There are lots of such dark movies... movies which make you want to constantly curse the characters as though they existed for real...

Hopscotch to Oblivion

This pic (above) supposedly was the rooftop of a hotel in Barcelona, Spain... It came to be known as Hopscotch to Oblivion and for good reason as one might note.... No idea if the place still exists... But wiki shows it as a classic piece of dark comedy.... What happens after hopscotching your way to squares 7 and 8 is anybody's guess....

Black humor, whatever form it takes, is seriously unpleasant... Especially for people with high levels of media sensitivity like me... *~Curses all wryness~*...

**Grim Reaper- The black-cloaked, scythe-wielding personification of death**