Hello, my name is Justin LeClew and I'm here today with Will Slawn.

And you're listening to The Important Cinema Club.

And today, we're talking about Japanese comedian, filmmaker, Hitoshi Matsumoto.

Now, Will, the thing about comedy when you're talking about global

comedy is that it usually doesn't travel that much. Would you agree with that? By and large,

other than Robert Benini, of course, who is Roberto. Roberto Benini, the world's comedian.

Robert Benini is what they would call him if it was like the 1970s. He directed Italian exploitation movies.

They would change his name to Robert Benign.

And as you may see there, Will said a joke, and I did not laugh because I'm telling you guys right now for this episode, I am not going to laugh.

And what's the reason for that, Justin?

The reason is Hitoshi Matsumoto, while he is not a

worldwide known filmmaker, he is very popular in Japan. And one of the things that has crossed

the border is his series' documentary, the idea of putting a bunch of comedians in a room,

and none of them are allowed to laugh for six hours. And that is the contest.

Now, I came over to your place a couple weeks ago and you were watching this. I think it was on

Amazon Prime. Yeah, that's where it is. And I was confused by it because I think I came in halfway

through, didn't really see the setup. By the way, I'm going to be taking this no laugh pledge as well.

So we'll see if one of us laughs, a gigantic hand comes out and smacks us in the face.

Which is keeping with the spirit of this Japanese comedian is that it's not only the no laughing, the torture of it all, but it's also the absurd.

So what I saw on that episode that you were watching was a bunch of people

puttering around a room. Several of them were in various states of undress. I think they had been in

the room for hours at that point. Many of their underwears were stained with their excretions.

...