AMC+ today premieres in Spain the fourth season of ‘Documentary Now!’, one of the most indescribable comedies on television today and, also, one of the most original because, who thought it was a good idea to parody the most prestigious documentaries of the last decades? And that, moreover, Helen Mirren presents them as if everything were true.
For – December 29, 2022
Documentary now! is an American public television program that has been on the air for 53 seasons, broadcasting some of the most prestigious and successful documentaries. Its host is Helen Mirren, which gives it an added veneer of respectability. It would still be if the show was real, but it’s not. It came out of the head Seth Meyers, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader and Rhys Thomasall old classmates Saturday night live with a great fondness for parodies so close to the original, that they are almost more homages.
The fourth season of the series arrives today on AMC+ and is a great example of not only the kind of comedy these four make, but also the attraction it has between famous actors who volunteer to participate in their parodies. From a first episode in which Armisen and Hader played almost all the characters, we have moved on to a fourth in which we find Alexander Skarsgaard, Harriet Walter and Cate Blanchettwhich was already a transcript by the artist Marina Abramovic in the third installment.
As for indie comedy and for a very specific audience, Documentary now! takes the cake because those who can enjoy it the most are viewers of feature films such as, for example, When we were kings, which chronicled the boxing match in the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, and which in the series turns into a story about a fight in Wales. The type of cinematography used is reproduced, the format in which the story is told, and it is usual to choose to give a serious and transcendental treatment to something totally banal and absurd.
It is a tone similar to that of many gods sketches from the previous series co-created by Armisen with Carrie Brownstein, portlandiain which they parodied many of the elements that make up identity hipster and modern. They could extract oil from a kilometer queue to eat in a club brunch.
What distinguishes Documentary now! it is the metareferential layer. It is amusing to see, for example, Alexander Skarsgaard transformed into a version of director Werner Herzog in search of stories as realistic as possible, often in extreme environments, or that well-known Broadway actors populate the documentary parody about the recording of the music disc Agency with its original cast.
The series laughs at what is usually the most attention-grabbing of those documentaries, but many times they get exactly the same thing they achieved success for. The father-son relationship Juan likes rice and chicken ends up being as exciting as the one told by the parodied documentary, Jiro dreams of sushi. It can be difficult to distinguish one from the other, were it not for that absurd aspect which tends to preside over the fictions in which their creators participate.
Documentary now! It’s not easy to describe, but it clearly is. one of the most original comedies that we can see currently. Her episodes vary enormously in tone, subject matter, and even humor, and it’s admirable that so much attention is paid to detail just to laugh at these documentaries, rather than for them.
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