Bananas

One of Woody Allen's early comedies. Fielding tests products in New York. The woman he loves leaves him for not being important enough. To prove himself he goes to a fictional Latin American country called San Marcos. There is a coup there, he joins the guerrillas, and he shortly becomes the country's leader. The humour is entirely disjointed and absurd: the scenes do not connect by logic, and when a joke is over the narrative moves to the next one. It is a long way from the character-centred structure of his later films. The best-known passage is a sports commentator calling a coup, and later a wedding night, as if broadcasting a match. Sylvester Stallone also appears briefly, before he was known. The story carries open references to the Cuban revolution and to American policy in Latin America, and never takes any of them seriously. A typical example for anyone who likes early Woody Allen and absurd humour. For a viewer expecting a mature narrative, the film is a series of sketches and the story exists to connect them.