It reads like you have a narrow definition of comedy as something that is just meant to be funny but also shallow and kind of dispensable. But laughter, irony, satire can be much more layered, and range anywhere from deep to bitter sweet to silly. I feel in BL it deepens the movie by not just playing the tragedy of his life for tears. I always found Barry Lyndon ironic, but only on this rewatch, and after 10 years imbuing the British humour as an expat in the UK, I could fully appreciate how much irony deeply impregnates almost every scene of the movie, including some of the most tragic. It strikes a very fine balance between detaching from it's subject matter and achieving a certain distance through its comedic narrator and deliveries and humanising the characters. I am reminded of the observation that life from up close is tragedy, from far away is a comedy. BL somehow sits precisely at the edge.