Death at a Funeral

Funerals are easy targets for farce, at least theoretically. The universal solemnity associated with death has provided the basis for countless comedies, though in reality I’ve yet to attend a funeral where a banging from the coffin was a source for mirth. But what does ring true in Death at a Funeral is our inability to bury the truth.

Death at a Funeral is a wry comedy that traces the mishaps of a family trying to bury their much-honoured father in the face of emerging scandal. It shares the penchant for British social faux pas with classics like Four Weddings and a Funeral, including the overly predictable, ‘Goodness, I just swore in front of the vicar!’ The jokes are a bit patchy early on and the comic tension a little slow in starting, but once the second reel starts it’s a fun watch. However, I guess I should have known that the British penchant for toilet humour was going to be fully indulged when I arrived at the screening to find my seat occupied by a complimentary roll of promotional Death at a Funeral toilet paper…

That said, the real comic value of this Frank Oz film lies in the characters’ determined attempts to bury the truth along with their dear old dad – the arrival of the wrong coffin, a foul-mouthed uncle and a mysterious midget with a disturbing collection of photographs notwithstanding. But the resulting humour does satirise the extraordinary attempts we will go to not to ‘speak ill of the dead’ when it comes to real-life funerals. The tragedy, and in this case the comedy, is that the truth will come out even if it is firmly secured in a pine-wood box and many people present are already aware of the hypocrisy they are communally engaging in.

The motivation for fighting the facts in Death at a Funeral is the preservation of the father’s good name. “He may not have been a perfect man,” his son Daniel (Matthew MacFadyen) is eventually forced to admit in his eulogy. “But he was a good man. We’re thrown together in a world full of confusion with lots of questions and no answers and we just have to do our best.” And herein lies the dilemma of the modern burial service. I believe much of the solemnity of death arises from the knowledge that a life has reached its earthly full-stop, and no more opportunities to add to or reform it can be entered into. It is fixed and now judgment will be entered into. We innately understand that there will be an accounting, though the confusion comes from not knowing who will be doing the tallying and what a satisfactory grade will be.  So, by and large, we fall back on academic metaphors to help us through. He or she ‘did their best’ and we all agree that their life was such a ‘difficult’ exam that on the whole they should at least emerge with a pass mark for the effort they put in. And like most students confronted with the possibility of a difficult ‘marker’, silence seems to be the best policy, lest we be called upon to give our own answers.

In his edited eulogy Daniel hopes that the tolerance his father displayed for those he met will be in turn displayed by those who sit in judgment of him at the funeral. “If only we could be as understanding a man as my father, then the world would be a better place.” In truth, the character and the film-makers are asking that the audience extend the same tolerance to cover all human foibles. The sentiments are roundly supported by relatives and friends but it’s a hope that is unlikely to find real purchase even in this mythical family. Most of the things we wish to remain secret are sources of real pain for others, rather than just embarrassing character traits. After all, the deceased’s wife is still going to deal with the fact that her husband was secretly cheating on her with a gay dwarf. (No, I haven’t just ruined the film for you!).

The most refreshing theme of Death at a Funeral is that silence about one’s past is something that will not be tolerated – in comedy or real life. The truth will force its way to the surface, whether we are prepared for it or not and everyone will have to deal with the consequences. Much the same can be said of our inevitable accounting before God. Funerals should be the ultimate occasions for honesty rather than more self-deception, since Jesus assures us that every secret will ultimately be laid bare. Better to live in the light of our failings now, while we have an opportunity to do something about them – while we have a chance to ask Jesus to sit the exam for us.

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