'The Earth according to Philomena Cunk': the documentary series of the moment is a comedy

The documentary genre has come so close to commercial entertainment that comedy is becoming one of its most powerful subgenres.

The

, an imposted non-fiction, almost always with humorous overtones, ceased to be something new with

band in the mid-1980s

).

The idea of ​​the mockumentary is being revitalized lately on television.

If a few weeks ago

a parody of independent cinema that is shown at European festivals, Charlie Brooker, the creator of

, insists on the formula by recovering one of his classic characters.

Earth according to Philomena Cunk

is the

of brainy and affected interviewers.

Through five half-hour chapters, this Netflix series shows a reporter who has no idea about anything, but who tries to explain to the viewer the origin of our civilization (or as the protagonist calls it, about the "human man") , in a fictional documentary series in the purest BBC style.

As he explains the history of our species, Cunk cites Twitter and YouTube as his sole sources for his questions, naturally dismissing the topics he covers on his show as boring, spouting nonsense about the cow being man's number one enemy, and slipping in other nonsense. ravings that, instead, have a bitter residue of truth.

The character played by Diane Morgan is a monument to humor from the discomfort and embarrassment of others, two resources that Brooker does not underline or point out.

The funniest thing is to see real experts in Greek, Egyptian or literature culture, from the most prestigious universities in the country, participating in this prank in the form of a series.

They respond stoically to Cunk, for whom sports are theater for stupid people and philosophy the act of thinking about thinking.

Let each viewer decide which of these provocations are more accurate than ridiculous.

The patient explanations of the interviewees are as authentic and articulate as possible, as they would be, without irony, in a program on the British public channel.

This is how the double reading that

offers the viewer is born.

Through one of her nonsense, when she questions historian John Man if it is true that the Great Wall of China can be heard from space, the parody journalist gives the opportunity to deny a hoax.

The royal expert gives a real answer: the truth is that the Chinese wall cannot be seen from there either.

NASA astronauts have confirmed it.

But Cunk does not give up: “So.

Is it an invisible wall? ”, She asks, like an applied questioner.

The series also has several narrative layers.

At one point, Cunk confesses to feeling intimidated, often stupid, in front of these experts with whom she converses.

At that moment, the camera breaks the usual shot-reverse shot rhythm in this format to focus on our protagonist, who offers an overwhelming look of stupefaction towards herself that has never been seen before.

Brooker's scripts are a non-stop of dialectical

, which become strong with the fine-tuned work of Diane Morgan, which is to interpret her character seriously enough to be terribly comic.

Cunk has to be the joke and not part of the joke.

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