The documentary genre has come so close to commercial entertainment that comedy has become one of its strongest subgenres. The mockumentary, a nonfiction, almost always humorous undertone, was nothing new with This is Spinal Tap (starring filmmaker Rob Reiner portraying a satirically heavy group in the mid-’80s). The idea of the mockumentary has recently been revived on television. When Documentary Now!, a spoof of independent cinema that tours European festivals, came out a few weeks ago, Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker insists on the formula by bringing back one of his classic characters.
According to Philomena Cunk, the earth is the paquita salas of the smart and affected interviewers. In five half-hour chapters, this Netflix series follows a reporter who knows nothing but tries to explain to the viewer the origin of our civilization (or as the protagonist calls it, about “man”) a fictional documentary series in the purest BBC Style.
As he explains the history of our species, Cunk cites Twitter and YouTube as his only sources for his questions, naturally dismissing the topics he covers on his show as boring, spouting nonsense about how the cow is the number one enemy of the… people, and injecting nonsense into others… rages that have a bitter residue of truth in their place. Played by Diane Morgan, the character is a monument of humor derived from the discomfort and embarrassment of others, two resources Brooker neither emphasizes nor emphasizes.
The funniest thing is to see real experts in Greek, Egyptian or literary culture from the most prestigious universities in the country participating in this prank in the form of a series. They react stoically to Cunk, for whom sport is theater for fools and philosophy is the act of thinking about thinking. Let each viewer decide which of these provocations are more accurate than ridiculous.
The interviewees’ patient explanations are as authentic and articulate as possible, as they would be without irony on a British public broadcaster’s programme. This creates the double reading that “The Earth According to Philomena Cunk” offers the viewer. Through one of her nonsense, when she asks historian John Man if it’s true that the Great Wall of China can be heard from space, the parody journalist offers an opportunity to deny a hoax. The royal expert gives a real answer: The truth is that the Great Wall of China cannot be seen from there either. NASA astronauts have confirmed it. But Cunk doesn’t give up: “So. Is it an invisible wall?” she asks like an applied questioner.
The series also has multiple narrative levels. At one point, Cunk confesses that she feels intimidated and often stupid in front of these experts she speaks to. At that moment, the camera breaks the usual shot-reverse-shot rhythm of this format to focus on our protagonist, who casts an overwhelming, unprecedented look of amazement at herself.
Brooker’s scripts are a non-stop dialectic gags that thrive with the finely tuned work of Diane Morgan, who seeks to interpret her character seriously enough to be terribly funny. Cunk has to be the joke and not part of the joke.
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