mircea-lungu

If you live in a different culture, and sometimes you don't fully understand it, if you ever took classes to get your driving license, and your instructor was constantly unhappy with the way you progress, or if you are just interested in cultural differences between Germany, India, and Japan then you will enjoy this movie.

the movie has surprisingly good acting by actors that you didn't hear about, beautiful imagery, and fun cultural clashes.

it is true, i had no expectations, or in fact, i was expecting that it will be hard to watch 1h30 of driving instructions, so this might be part of the reason for which i was positively surprised.

Beyond the comedy, it is an interesting meditation on what it means to be living in a different country.

Hmm, it's quite risky with all these movies that expect to be watched twice to be fully understood. At times the first watch feels one too much already.

I saw In Bruges by the same director and I liked it. This one I didn't. So I wanted to write a review to say don't watch it. But then I changed my mind. Indeed, the movie reminds me of the joke with the man selling a horse at the market. A customer stops, looks at the horse, and a dialogue ensues:

• it looks so skinny...

• yes it's quite weak.

• and, it does not have teeth...

• no it doesn't... the twit!

• it also looks like it's not seeing well...

• yeah, it is blind; such an old piece of turd!

• then why bring it to the market?

• well, i just want to ridicule the bastard.

For a comedy I found the movie a bit like the horse in the story. A bit skinny (the humor is diluted by a dramatic atmosphere, a meta-text which also yearns to be critique of Hollywood clichés into which the film falls nevertheless), without teeth (that would be the plot, or any kind of character development), and blind (the movie starts with a discussion about shooting people in the eye and goes downhill towards scenes worthy of horror movies).

But "comedy" is in the eye of the beholder after all, so go and see it...