by MATTHEW HAYS

Screening the entries for this year’s Comedia, the Just for Laughs Comedy Film Festival, the standout is undoubtedly American Splendor. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and a hit at Cannes, with this feature, directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini have brought to life the comic books of famous grump Harvey Pekar.

An odd mix of archival footage, documentary interview, animated bits and dramatic re-enactment, American Splendor is based on Pekar’s autobiographical comic books and graphic novels of the same name. They began in the ’70s, when Pekar, who can’t draw to save his life, scratched down a few stick men and a narrative on some paper. He showed it to his buddy, legendary artist Robert Crumb, who loved the script but could see Pekar couldn’t create the visual element. Crumb offered to do the artwork and Pekar’s hugely popular, long-running slice-oflife comic book was born.

All of the elements of Pekar’s life—the fact that numerous artists have drawn him for the series, his odd romances, his legendary appearances on David Letterman’s show— are all brought to life beautifully here. Paul Giamatti does an incredible job of acting as a younger Pekar, and that’s a daunting task, considering that the actual Pekar shows up occasionally in the film, effectively competing with his doppelganger.

American Splendor presents a pretty elaborate balancing act: it asks us to look at Pekar and his oddball buddies without gawking (which was part of the reason the Letterman set). To the filmmakers’ credit, it works—amazingly, the crew come across as sweet, intriguing and hardly victims of a practical joke. Pekar’s battle with cancer (which also became a comic book) also supplies the film with a poignant story arc.

Sex on celluloid

Also on the must-see front is French arthouse goddess Catherine Breillat’s own private 8 1/2. In Sex is Comedy, she pokes fun at her personal filmmaking experiences, in particular the shooting of one coitus scene in which the two actors participating hated each other viscerally. As the creator of two of France’s most explicit and controversial films of the past decade, Romance and Fat Girl, Breillat would certainly be the person equipped to tell the juiciest on-set war stories.

Turning up the international volume, this year’s Comedia also features Steal It If You Can, a comic action movie from South Korea by Lim Kyung-su, about the massive battle that ensues when one sexy thief decides to attack the household of a beleaguered husband and father. CGI and slapstick congeal And arriving from Brazil is Breaking Up (Separacoes), Domingos de Oliveira’s welcome respite from the stupidity called “romantic comedies” overwhelmingly delivered by Hollywood studios. Oliviera plays an older man married to a much younger woman; when he suggests they might do well to break up and try other partners, he’s soon regretting the blunder. She, meanwhile, is enjoying the formerly forbidden fruits of a hot new lover. Meanwhile, emanating from Israel is Café Tales, Amit Leor’s wacky tale of a fiftysomething poet who tries to make sense of his insane life, most of which is spent with a motley crew inside a run-down café.

Maudlin fish story

On the home front, Jean-Francois Pouliot’s La Grande Séduction, a sweet fishing village movie, is Comedia’s opening film. Penned by Ken Scott, the film involves one desperate Quebec fishing village, decimated by years of economic decline. The town appears to be on the brink of salvation: a factory will open there, but only if the town has a resident doctor. The entire population must then involve themselves in a massive snow job, trying to convince a young physician that this tiny town is the best place for him to settle. Much of La Grande Séduction is sweet, and it’s certainly nice to see a Quebec comedy that doesn’t resort to endless beer jokes or pie-in-the-face gags to get laughs, but it goes a bit too far in the maudlin direction. There’s also just something flat-out weird about seeing a Waking Ned Devine-ish, Local Hero-esque comedy set entirely in Quebec. It’s a bit jarring.

Finally, look fast for the tried and true: Eat My Shorts and Eat My Twisted Shorts, the compilations of short films, return, Carl Reiner and Charlie Chaplin will be feted with screenings, and former Montrealer Albert Nerenberg’s Stupidity, a hit at Toronto’s Hot Docs fest, will have its Quebec premiere. And Lloyd Kaufman, legendary sleazemeister and founder of Troma Films, will be conducting a master class in filmmaking done on the cheap. A must-attend for local filmmakers!

Comedia, the comedy film festival of Just for Laughs, screens from July 10-20. Info: www.hahaha.com or call 790-HAHA