A Sweet Absurdist Dark Comedy
Released: 2012
Director: Jonas Akerlund
Below: Juno Temple plays an aspiring teen stripper and resident of an apartment complex where characters played by James Caan, Matt Lucas, and Johnny Knoxville also live. Here she stops by a nearby convenience store where the clerk trades her a pack of cigarettes in exchange for a chance to feel her up for a second. Often the colors are saturated and somewhat lurid in the film, giving it a seedy, somewhat surreal quality.
Above: James Caan is a nihilistic, bitter retired guy named Mister Allspice who makes wild, dark, erotic paintings and complains about the noise from his neighbor’s alphorn.
Below: Franklin Franklin, played by Matt Lucas, British comedian and actor, dreams of moving from a raunchy small apartment in a crumbling area of LA to Switzerland where people are nicer and the air is fresh and the Alpine scenery delightful. To help bring his fantasy to life, he blows an alphorn, much to the annoyance of Mister Allspice (James Caan).
SMALL APARTMENTS is one of a handful of feature films (and one 6-part TV series) by a highly regarded Swedish director of music videos and concert films, Jonas Akerlund. Briefly a drummer for a black metal band, he leans toward a dark view of life and the cosmos. However, like many people who have a bleak view of things, he also sees the comedic side, the absurdist quality of life — which can be funny. Thus it makes sense that he’s made dark feature films like POLAR (2019, an action thriller), HORSEMAN (2009, a psychological thriller), LORDS OF CHAOS (2018, a biographical heavy-metal horror thriller) and he’s also made dark comedies like SPUN (2002, crime comedy-satire), CLARK (2022, 6-part biographical comedic crime drama), and SMALL APARTMENTS (2012, absurdist dark comedy).
On the surface, aside from an amazing cast, SMALL APARTMENTS doesn’t seem to have a lot going for it in terms of mainstream appeal. While ostensibly a comedy, it’s not a comedy full of gags and laughs. As for dramatic potential, the film’s plot centers around a fat guy in whitie tighties who has accidentally kills his nasty, blowjob-demanding landlord. And yet, the film is funny if you like weirdo offbeat humor. And the protagonist is endearing, an innocent in a strange world, well played by the actor Matt Lucas.
The film also features an exceptional cast which includes Billy Crystal in a subtle, low-key performance, James Caan as a burnout retiree painting nightmarish erotic paintings, and many other stars in strong performances. The film asks viewers to engage with a bunch of LA losers — a formula for success only when courting a cult-film audience with a taste for such types. Those oddballs are beautifully played by excellent performers — Amanda Plumber as a dingy mom, Rebel Wilson as a goth girlfriend into cleansing, Juno Temple as a teen wannabe Vegas stripper, James Marsden as a charismatic hunk who cracks up, Rosie Perez as a bizarre nurse, Dolph Lundgren as a Tony-Robbins-like self-help guru, Johnny Knoxville as a self-improvement-oriented goth dude, Peter Stormare as a creepy landlord, and more. If you like dark comedies full of weirdos and feel tired of the cardboard characters so often found in mainstream Hollywood films and many genre films, you’ll enjoy this film.
At the center of the film is the anti-hero, a white-underpants-wearing man-child played by Matt Lucas. Lucas is a star comedian and show presenter in England, but relatively unknown in America. Here he plays a bald, doughy, very white, eyebrowless, and relatively innocent person — a young Sidney Greenstreet in whitie tighties. Lucas is excellent in the role of the broke, beleaguered loser. He’s a hapless underdog who blows an alphorn and dreams of living in bucolic bliss in the meadows of the Swiss Alps.
The film is based on a novella (and screenplay) by Chris Millis, a writer, celebrity collaborator, and cartoonist. An Amazon profile of the author states that the film SMALL APARTMENTS was an audience favorite when it premiered at SSW in Austin in 2012 — a dark and subversive cult film. The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER called it “singularly weird.” On the GOOD READS book-review site the protagonist of the novella, Franklin Franklin (played Matt Lucas) is identified as being similar to the CONFEDERACY OF THE DUNCES protagonist, Ignatius Reilly. Both characters long for pastoral serenity far from the urban irritants and agonies of modern life.
I’ve viewed the film a number of times over the past few years because I enjoy it a lot. I like the LA setting and the surreal quality of the film. When I first watched the film, I loved the absurdist humor and the assortment of LA weirdos in the film. It depicts the underbelly of LA life, something Akerlund also did in his debut feature, SPUN (2002, Mickey Rourke, Jonathan Schwartzman, John Leguizamo), a surreal comedy about meth freaks and dealers in LA. SMALL APARTMENTS is a like a David Lynch film blended with slapstick and absurdist humor. I lived in Los Angeles on and off from 1990 to 2013, particularly East Hollywood and downtown Hollywood, and I saw some of the underbelly over the years, and it’s kind of fascinating to see it examined in films.
The film has several notable themes. One is the absurdity of life. Europeans like Swedish director Akerlund seem particularly attuned to absurdist comedy. The grand master is Luis Bunuel. Samuel Beckett won a Nobel prize in part for his masterpiece of absurdist humor and philosophical insight, WAITING FOR GODOT. The Existentialists (Sartre, Camus) were into the absurd nature of the universe. Americans are hip to absurdity too. W.C. Fields and the Marx Brothers explored the absurdity of life in films. CATCH-22 explores the absurdity of war in a novel and a film. So does DOCTOR STRANGELOVE, a film by an American director (Kubrick) and American screenwriters like Terry Southern blended with a masterful performance by a great absurdist actor, Peter Sellers.
Above: Former dark metal drummer and sometimes absurdist comedy director Jonas Akerlund at a press event for his horror thriller LORDS OF CHAOS, February 08, 2019 in Brooklyn, New York. (Photo by Santiago Felipe) SMALL APARTMENTS was already in his rearview mirror, but he would soon direct a mini-series with a comedic quality — the Netflix series CLARK (2022) — all about the life of a famous Swedish bank robber and hostage-taker whose hostage-friendly behavior gave rise to the expression “Stockholm Syndrome.’ (Akerlund is Swedish and was born in 1965 — 57 in 2023. He’s six-feet-three inches tall.)
The absurdist nature of the story originates is the novella: Chris Millis writes about the protagonist Franklin Franklin looking down at the dead Mr. Olivetti… “Dead flies. Dead Mr. Olivetti. Life is short and full of surprises, Franklin thought.” Many absurd moments occur, some funny. When Franklin Franklin attempts to dispose of the body of dead Mr. Olivetti, not only is taking the body out of the apartment full of absurd elements, but especially the attempt to stage Olivetti’s death as a suicide in the garage of his home abounds in absurd accidents, most shrugged off by Franklin (Lucas). A sense of the universe as pointlessly absurd is expressed by Mr. Allspice (played by James Caan) when he chats with the fire inspector played by Billy Crystal and saids, “What the fuck does it all mean? It’s all bullshit.”
Another theme is the effort at self-improvement — finding meaning in life and having a better life in the face of a sometimes cruel and absurd world. Nearly every major character in the film is on a self-improvement kick. Franklin Franklin wants to move to Switzerland. His brother, who is going nuts, seeks help from a self-help guru and his books. (The self-help guru is played satirically by Dolph Lundgren doing a Tony Robbins routine.) Simone, the pretty young woman across the way from Franklin played by Juno Temple wants to move to Vegas and work as an exotic dancer, something Tommy Balls (Johnny Knoxville) warns her about. Knoxville, with a comical metal-goth look (clothing and makeup), tries to achieve one or more goals or projects a day.
Self-improvement is something Americans have championed from the very beginning thanks to a belief that anyone can make it big in America — anyone can become wealthy or better themselves and move up in life in the Land of Opportunity. One of the first advocates of this was Ben Franklin. He wrote a number of self-improvement books including THE WAY TO WEALTH. Over the years, Dale Carnegie’s books, Tony Robbins books, prosperity-Christianity via ministers like Robert Tilton and Joel Osteen (the preacher of the “prosperity gospel”) have had success selling books full of advice on ways to achieve success. The relentless optimism and enthusiasm for self transformation and improvement of Americans has, at times, a deluded quality. (As in, for example, endless diets and cosmetic surgery.) While some of the ideas provided by such gurus might be of some use, the truth is that most people don’t move ahead that significantly from the socio-economic group they started out in. (Though enough do advance through extraordinary talent or skill or luck to keep the myth of “anyone can make it big” alive.) The absurdity of this overly eager quest for self improvement was mocked when people began re-editing videos of preacher Robert Tilton’s self-help TV performances and calls for donations by adding lots of well-placed fart sounds, for example. (Cf. PASTOR GAS on Youtube.)
Above: Dolph Lundgren plays a Tony-Robbins-like self-improvement guru who views self help as similar to physical fitness. “Achieving true brain brawn begins when you understand that your brain is a muscle that needs to be toned.” says Lundgren as Dr. Sage Mennox.
While SMALL APARTMENTS mocks underdogs and fringe characters living in LA’s underbelly, it also shows sympathy for their plight. And some characters get lucky. One character who moves through a traditional Hollywood-movie plot arch of having a problem and then learning lessons and changing for the better is Billy Crystal’s character. He seems transformed in a good way by the events and characters in the story.
For Akerlund the weirdness of America, and especially its fringe characters who cook up meth in motels (Mickey Rourke in Akerlund’s SPUN) or live in mid-mod semi-abandoned apartment complexes and blow Alphorns while wearing whitie tighties, is a source of fascination and has a surreal, dream-like quality. Akerlund ramped up the weirdness by filming with super-saturated colors. And, as with the novella, there are many moments in the film in which the protagonist, Franklin Franklin, slips into reveries — either memories or dreams of a glorious future.
The intense, unnatural colors featured in the film give LA a lurid, otherworldly quality. So do the abandoned, squalid buildings where much of the action takes place. Much of the action is set in and around an long-abandoned 20-acre mid-century shopping plaza in the Crenshaw District of Los Angeles that features many low, horizontal storefronts and buildings. Few things in the film seem contemporary. For example, Franklin drives an ugly green Ford Pinto (made from 1970 -1980) and his apartment features retro-kitsch knick-knacks on mid-century shelves and a mid-century dining table. The overall effect is to make the film seem somewhat surreal and dreamlike and outside of any recognizable decade.
One could call a sub-genre of films like this Sweet Absurdist Dark Comedies. They’re funny in an absurdist way, somewhat bleak in their outlook, but they ultimately show fondness for their characters and sympathize with human struggles.
Another film in this sub-genre would be another favorite film of mine, AN EVENING WITH BEVERLY LUFF LYNN (2018) by Jim Hosking, the director of THE GREASY STRANGLER (2016). Some of Bunuel’s films, like THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE (1977), could be included in the sub-genre. BEING THERE (1979), starring Peter Sellers is another dark yet sweet comedy. PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE leans strongly toward the sweeter side of absurdist comedy.
To a degree, absurdist humor goes back to dadaism and surrealism. In surrealist humor people display illogical behavior or live in a fantasy-dream world. ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND (1865) is another precursor to the Sweet Absurdist Dark Comedy sub-genre. The 2-part novel DON QUIXOTE (1605 and 1615) could be considered the granddaddy of modern absurdist humor and a distant forerunner to Sweet Absurdist Dark Comedy.
Rejection of logic and traditional storytelling combined with embracing of the strange and absurd — this is what Absurdist comedies do. Emphasizing the sweetness of life and the bleakness of life at the same time is what Sweet Absurdist Dark Comedies do. SMALL APARTMENTS does it well.
Above: The abandoned Martlton Building is located in a large derelict shopping complex in Crenshaw in Los Angeles. This is where a lot of the action takes place in the film — in this mid-century wasteland / ghost town zone — transformed to some degree for the film.
Below: A mid-century abandoned building in the same area of LA as the Marlton and a location for a scene in the film.
Below: At one point in the film, Franklin talks with himself in a mirror and gets answers from himself.
Below: Franklin Franklin’s brother is his opposite — gregarious, popular with women, financially successful.
Above: Franklin looks down at a dead Mr. Olivetti and wonders how to dispose of the body.
fleshapoidfilms 