When asked why this film is called "Bananas", Woody Allen is said to have replied "Because there are no bananas in it". Given that the action takes place in a military dictatorship in South America, the name is presumably a reference to the expression "banana republic", and possibly also to the phrase "go bananas", meaning to go crazy.
Woody plays Fielding Mellish, an early incarnation of the sort of character he was to play in most of his films, the perpetually worried, neurotic New Yorker (although in this case less obviously Jewish than some later Woody characters). Fielding, who works as a consumer products tester, gets involved with Latin American politics when he falls in love with Nancy, a political radical whose pet cause is supporting the guerrillas fighting to overthrow the dictatorial President Vargas of the small Republic of San Marcos. When their relationship comes to an end, he decides to visit the country for himself, only to become mixed up with the rebels. The film ends with Fielding himself becoming President of San Marcos after a revolution and then, on his return to the United States, being placed on trial as a subversive.
This film was made in 1971, near the beginning of Woody's career, and like most of his other early films such as "Take the Money and Run", "Sleeper" and "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex ." it is a "pure" comedy, without the philosophical depth or analysis of human relationships that were to mark later films such as "Annie Hall" or "Manhattan". The film with which it perhaps has most in common is "Sleeper" from two years later, which also deals in a comic way with the theme of the little man getting mixed up in a rebellion against a dictator. Nancy has something in common with Luna, the character played by Diane Keaton in the later film.
The main difference between the two films is that "Sleeper", which is set in an imagined future two centuries hence, revolves around physical slapstick humour of the sort familiar from old silent comedies. Although there is some humour of that type in "Bananas", such as the scene where Fielding tries to demonstrate an exercise machine for busy executives, the style of humour is less physical and more satirical, particularly in the scenes set in San Marcos.
I particularly liked the scene where Vargas receives tribute from the peasants, each of whom has to present their President with his weight in dung on his birthday, so that he can fertilise his private estates- a farcical concept, but a suitably surreal and Chaplinesque comment on the politics of dictatorship (and there have been some dictators who have made their subjects do things that are almost equally absurd). Some of the satire is aimed at American foreign policy; during this period of history the State Department was prepared to support virtually any non-Communist ruler, no matter how oppressive (and even Communist ones, such as Tito, if they were anti-Russian), on the basis of "he may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch". The trial scenes (also very funny) can be seen as a critique of the American establishment's McCarthy-style intolerance of any political dissent.
This does not, however, mean that Woody is simply concerned to attach the political Right from a left-wing position. There is plenty here to offend the political Left as well. Nancy is a shallow character, a radical-chic fun-revolutionary whose support for foreign revolutionary movements owes less to idealism than to a need to bring glamour and excitement into a humdrum existence. Fielding is initially even more shallow- his interest in the politics of San Marcos is due to nothing more elevated than his hopes of getting Nancy into bed. Woody's also satirises the Left through the figure of Esposito, the Marxist guerrilla leader (modelled on Fidel Castro) who succeeds in overthrowing Vargas only to prove as power-hungry as the man he has replaced, and even more irrational. If there is a political message here, it is that there is little point in a revolution which simply exchanges one dictator for another; Castro was originally supported by many American liberals who became disenchanted when, having overthrown the dictator Batista, he failed to hold free elections and instead turned Cuba into a one-party Communist state and a launch-pad for Khrushchev's missiles.
I felt that the film started off rather slowly, although there are some good scenes even in the early part, such as the one where a reporter gives a commentary on the overthrow and assassination of the President of San Marcos in the style of a sports commentary. It soon, however, picked up and turned into an amusing satirical comedy. It doesn't, however, have the depth of some of Woody's later films or quite the same biting verbal wit. 7/10
Woody plays Fielding Mellish, an early incarnation of the sort of character he was to play in most of his films, the perpetually worried, neurotic New Yorker (although in this case less obviously Jewish than some later Woody characters). Fielding, who works as a consumer products tester, gets involved with Latin American politics when he falls in love with Nancy, a political radical whose pet cause is supporting the guerrillas fighting to overthrow the dictatorial President Vargas of the small Republic of San Marcos. When their relationship comes to an end, he decides to visit the country for himself, only to become mixed up with the rebels. The film ends with Fielding himself becoming President of San Marcos after a revolution and then, on his return to the United States, being placed on trial as a subversive.
This film was made in 1971, near the beginning of Woody's career, and like most of his other early films such as "Take the Money and Run", "Sleeper" and "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex ." it is a "pure" comedy, without the philosophical depth or analysis of human relationships that were to mark later films such as "Annie Hall" or "Manhattan". The film with which it perhaps has most in common is "Sleeper" from two years later, which also deals in a comic way with the theme of the little man getting mixed up in a rebellion against a dictator. Nancy has something in common with Luna, the character played by Diane Keaton in the later film.
The main difference between the two films is that "Sleeper", which is set in an imagined future two centuries hence, revolves around physical slapstick humour of the sort familiar from old silent comedies. Although there is some humour of that type in "Bananas", such as the scene where Fielding tries to demonstrate an exercise machine for busy executives, the style of humour is less physical and more satirical, particularly in the scenes set in San Marcos.
I particularly liked the scene where Vargas receives tribute from the peasants, each of whom has to present their President with his weight in dung on his birthday, so that he can fertilise his private estates- a farcical concept, but a suitably surreal and Chaplinesque comment on the politics of dictatorship (and there have been some dictators who have made their subjects do things that are almost equally absurd). Some of the satire is aimed at American foreign policy; during this period of history the State Department was prepared to support virtually any non-Communist ruler, no matter how oppressive (and even Communist ones, such as Tito, if they were anti-Russian), on the basis of "he may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch". The trial scenes (also very funny) can be seen as a critique of the American establishment's McCarthy-style intolerance of any political dissent.
This does not, however, mean that Woody is simply concerned to attach the political Right from a left-wing position. There is plenty here to offend the political Left as well. Nancy is a shallow character, a radical-chic fun-revolutionary whose support for foreign revolutionary movements owes less to idealism than to a need to bring glamour and excitement into a humdrum existence. Fielding is initially even more shallow- his interest in the politics of San Marcos is due to nothing more elevated than his hopes of getting Nancy into bed. Woody's also satirises the Left through the figure of Esposito, the Marxist guerrilla leader (modelled on Fidel Castro) who succeeds in overthrowing Vargas only to prove as power-hungry as the man he has replaced, and even more irrational. If there is a political message here, it is that there is little point in a revolution which simply exchanges one dictator for another; Castro was originally supported by many American liberals who became disenchanted when, having overthrown the dictator Batista, he failed to hold free elections and instead turned Cuba into a one-party Communist state and a launch-pad for Khrushchev's missiles.
I felt that the film started off rather slowly, although there are some good scenes even in the early part, such as the one where a reporter gives a commentary on the overthrow and assassination of the President of San Marcos in the style of a sports commentary. It soon, however, picked up and turned into an amusing satirical comedy. It doesn't, however, have the depth of some of Woody's later films or quite the same biting verbal wit. 7/10