It's a pity the title of the film as released in the USA is "Betty the Undertaker". How uninspiring! The original title is "Plots with a View" and is a subtle hint at the actual main theme of the film. I can't imagine why the distributors would want to change it.
Death and funerals are difficult themes for a director to use in making a successful dark comedy movie. The best was probably the Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Trouble With Harry" in 1955, but the one that was most uproariously funny in my opinion was "Weekend at Bernie's", in 1989. I never stopped laughing until it hurt.
"Roseana's Grave" is on a par with "Plots With a View" in that I found both films slightly amusing, but improving somewhat as they went on. In "Roseana's Grave" the plot is that there is a shortage of plots in a certain Italian village and there is a kind of resurrection; in "Plots with a View" the theme is a rivalry between undertakers (the village is too small for two of them) and there is also a "resurrection". In both movies we watch a loving couple figuratively go off to the sunset at the end.
The trouble with "Plots with a View" is that it took a long time to begin to get funny after a promising false start involving two cats and a cantankerous bed-ridden mother-in-law. In fact my wife gave up watching the film after the first forty minutes as neither of us had even sniggered to that point. "So much for British humour" thought I. I was expecting something in the line of Monty Python, The Ealing Studios original "The Lady killers" (not the pallid Tom Hanks imitation) or the better of the Carry-On team film series. No this was, indeed more continental than British humour despite the South Wales setting.
Fortunately, things do warm up afterwards and I found myself progressively giggling (but not rolling on the floor with laughter) as I had with Roseana's Grave, a European black comedy film. The plot thickens in the village "Wrottyn Powys" (pronounced Rotten Poohs, I wonder?) and there are some nice comical twists. I have seldom, if ever, seen Christopher Walken in comedy. I suppose the nearest was his part as a kidnapped mafia don in "Suicide Kings", also a dark comedy where he plays the straight role. Naomi Watts was also unexpectedly good as a comedian, the lover-cum-secretary of "the deceased's" husband. The last time I saw her on the screen was in a leading straight part in "Mulholland Drive" (an intriguing fantasy film). Albert Molina had a relatively straight part as Mayor of a little French town in the fantasy-melodrama "Chocolat", loosely derived from the Mexican original (Chocolat itself was shamelessly copied in the popular Greek TV comedy series "Café of Delights"). In "Plots With a View" Molina is cast as the village undertaker who is in love with the local big-wig's wife and has to put up with new competition from a deranged jazzy American rival (Walken with an over the top hair-style that makes him look a bit like either an Elvis Presley look alike or one of the Three Stooges).
The film is in bad taste, as dark comedies involving death or funerals, usually are by definition but if you can get over or fast forward the uninspiring first forty minutes it is quite enjoyable if you feel like a break from more serious material.
Death and funerals are difficult themes for a director to use in making a successful dark comedy movie. The best was probably the Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Trouble With Harry" in 1955, but the one that was most uproariously funny in my opinion was "Weekend at Bernie's", in 1989. I never stopped laughing until it hurt.
"Roseana's Grave" is on a par with "Plots With a View" in that I found both films slightly amusing, but improving somewhat as they went on. In "Roseana's Grave" the plot is that there is a shortage of plots in a certain Italian village and there is a kind of resurrection; in "Plots with a View" the theme is a rivalry between undertakers (the village is too small for two of them) and there is also a "resurrection". In both movies we watch a loving couple figuratively go off to the sunset at the end.
The trouble with "Plots with a View" is that it took a long time to begin to get funny after a promising false start involving two cats and a cantankerous bed-ridden mother-in-law. In fact my wife gave up watching the film after the first forty minutes as neither of us had even sniggered to that point. "So much for British humour" thought I. I was expecting something in the line of Monty Python, The Ealing Studios original "The Lady killers" (not the pallid Tom Hanks imitation) or the better of the Carry-On team film series. No this was, indeed more continental than British humour despite the South Wales setting.
Fortunately, things do warm up afterwards and I found myself progressively giggling (but not rolling on the floor with laughter) as I had with Roseana's Grave, a European black comedy film. The plot thickens in the village "Wrottyn Powys" (pronounced Rotten Poohs, I wonder?) and there are some nice comical twists. I have seldom, if ever, seen Christopher Walken in comedy. I suppose the nearest was his part as a kidnapped mafia don in "Suicide Kings", also a dark comedy where he plays the straight role. Naomi Watts was also unexpectedly good as a comedian, the lover-cum-secretary of "the deceased's" husband. The last time I saw her on the screen was in a leading straight part in "Mulholland Drive" (an intriguing fantasy film). Albert Molina had a relatively straight part as Mayor of a little French town in the fantasy-melodrama "Chocolat", loosely derived from the Mexican original (Chocolat itself was shamelessly copied in the popular Greek TV comedy series "Café of Delights"). In "Plots With a View" Molina is cast as the village undertaker who is in love with the local big-wig's wife and has to put up with new competition from a deranged jazzy American rival (Walken with an over the top hair-style that makes him look a bit like either an Elvis Presley look alike or one of the Three Stooges).
The film is in bad taste, as dark comedies involving death or funerals, usually are by definition but if you can get over or fast forward the uninspiring first forty minutes it is quite enjoyable if you feel like a break from more serious material.