UPDATED (03/15/08)
(My review of "Funny Games" is here. See also Your User's Guide to Movie Violence, a discussion below.)
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"You Must Admit, You Brought This On Yourself"
-- advertising tagline, and line of dialog, from "Funny Games" (2008)
"Funny Games" (the 2008 Hollywood movie-star version of the virtually identical 1997 Euro-version) is a conceptual work, an aestheticized test. It's debatable whether the movie (already a replica) is necessary, except as an object that represents the larger concept -- like, say, an Andy Warhol Brillo box or Jeff Koons' vacuum cleaners in plexiglass cases.
You could say something similar about the high-concept "Snakes On a Plane," and you'd be right. The difference is that the marketing campaign behind the packaging of "Snakes On a Plane" was designed to sell exactly the entertainment experience that the title promised. With "Funny Games," there's a deliberate element of bait-and-switch involved. It's being sold as entertainment, but that's not at all what it intends to deliver. The experience of "Funny Games" exists in the tension between the pitch and the delivery -- which will largely determine the relationship between the viewer and the film he/she sees.
So, the promotional materials for "Funny Games" (poster art, trailers, online videos, etc.) are more than the usual extensions or enhancements of the movie. They frame the experience, but they're also essential elements of the movie itself. Why you decide to watch it (or not) is every bit as central to the movie's concerns as anything in the movie itself. That may be true of any movie, but "Funny Games" puts it right there in the foreground where you can't miss it.
If you go expecting entertainment and are entertained (or, at least, terrified -- held hostage by your own expectations), that will be one thing. If you go expecting a moral lesson about the appeal of violence in movies, and you feel chastened and sullied, that will be another. If you go expecting a thriller or a comedy and find nothing thrilling or funny about it, that will be something else. If you go expecting to be toyed with and, say, enjoy feeling that you're ahead of the movie (maybe because you've already seen the 1997 version), that will provide yet another experience. If you value writer-director Michael Haneke's other work and want to see why he's chosen to remake this one... well, I hope you get the idea.
So, the first part of the experiment involves your decision to participate or not. The movie is the second part.
A friend of mine describes "Funny Games" as an endurance test -- something that has to be experienced so that you can talk about it afterwards. I think that's a pretty good description, because the reviews and the discussion are at least as important as the marketing and the movie -- and very likely more emotionally engaging than the film itself. I see it as a different kind of test, a test of free will. Whether you loathe the movie, or laugh at it, or enjoy it, or find it edifying, or think it's dumber than you are, or wonder what all the fuss was about, all that really matters is: What will you sit still for, and why?
"Funny Games" is an experiment along the lines of the famous Milgram and Stanford prison experiments. In other words, the movie is also an incitement to action. To politely and willingly submit to the movie's terms of authority is to sheepishly put yourselves in the same position as the captives in the movie, to accept its premise that "You brought this on yourself."
Once you buy into that, even a little bit, then you are trapped. The film demands something more than that you just sit there and take it, especially if you reject what you're seeing. If you passively "give up," then both you and the movie have failed the conceptual challenge. Maybe this is taking Haneke too seriously, but if he really means what he says he's attempting to do, he might well claim that fitting, healthy responses to the film would involve forms of protest and civil disobedience that... well, you'll have to figure out where to draw the line yourself. For me, free speech demands more free speech.
J. Hoberman in the Village Voice writes:
"Funny Games" is ultimately about forcing the viewer to confront his or her expectations. Would you enjoy seeing a terrified, helpless, half-naked woman? (The remake's major concession to the American market is a long scene of Naomi Watts hopping around in her underwear; in the original, the wife is clothed.) Are you getting bored? Isn't it about time for something to happen? Do you want to see the worm turn? Or simply wish the movie would end? Professional obligations required that I endure it, but there's no reason why you should.I reached a different conclusion but some people might not see the difference at first:
"Funny Games" represents the laborious execution of an abstract notion. The concept is the movie, kind of like Andy Warhol's 1964 "Empire," an eight-hour stationary shot of the Empire State Building. You don't have to sit through the whole thing to get the point, unless you really want to.This ties back to Haneke's own statement that, "Anyone who leaves the cinema doesn't need the film, and anybody who stays does."
So, you will have your reasons for seeing "Funny Games" or not seeing "Funny Games." And you will have your reasons for sitting all the way through it or walking out. The essential thing is to understand why you are choosing to do whatever you do. If you're curious to see how it turns out, then go ahead. If you find yourself feeling that life is too short to subject yourself to this kind of game, that's OK, too. But it's your decision.
And now, for fun, here are some excerpts from the reviews. Haneke should be absolutely thrilled with every one of these -- perhaps especially the negative ones:
The picture, remade by the maestro Haneke himself, is every bit as gripping, suspenseful and upsetting as the original. And it's even more of a crock. [...]This reminds me of when I was in college and I showed Russ Meyer's "Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens." The house was packed with randy dormies and frat boys. Perfect guinea pigs: You want gratuitous breast nudity? I'll give you all the gratuitous breast nudity you can handle. I'll give you the most humongous breasts you've ever seen! The crowd was quite audibly grossed out by that much breast nudity. It was a spectacle, but not the arousing one they had expected. They jeered, they laughed, they groaned, they howled, they walked out and went back to their kegs and petite sorority chicks. I wish Michael Haneke could have seen it. I just wonder if he would have understood what he was seeing. OK, back to the reviews:Throughout the picture, Haneke demonstrates an imperial hauteur that completely undercuts his already dubious point. After having his characters establish the unreality of the piece by addressing the camera, he then depicts, as realistically as contemporary cinematic technology will allow, the very real pain and humiliation suffered by victims of actual violence. [...]
Not terribly convincing stuff, as it happens, and a bit too-little-too-late after Haneke's high-handed deck-stacking. Funny Games is an accomplished film... but my ultimate advice to movie lovers is to spare yourselves some needless abuse and not bother to play at all.
-- Glenn Kenny, PremiereThe white gloves should be a tipoff, for, ingratiating good manners aside, the two are a couple of psychopaths whose idea of “funny games” is first verbal and then physical abuse and brutality. And the rules of these games, diabolical and repeatedly changed to keep screwing the unwilling players, have a kind of sick logic and a demented justice. As much as you want to root for the victims — excruciatingly portrayed by Watts, Roth, and Gearhart — you might also suspect that they’re getting what’s coming to them. Even the dog is an annoying yapper.
Yet not even [10-year-old] Georgie deserves what these creeps eventually dish out. [...]
Audiences, in America especially, are happy to be entertained by the spectacle of graphic violence and not so happy to have to confront the human toll in pain and loss. You could ask why, but what fun would that be? Moral queries aside, "Funny Games" is a masterpiece of making audiences squirm and understanding why they do.
-- Peter Keough, Boston PhoenixBy withholding the worst we can imagine, yet finding ways to deliver worse, Haneke rigs the movie into a weapon against its audience. Like the infected porn that destroys perverts in Cronenberg’s "Videodrome," "Funny Games" means to kill our pleasure in the very thing we theoretically paid to see: zipless, guilt-free, morally untroubled mayhem.
That mission makes "Funny Games" an easy movie to despise but an impossible one to shake. The ultimate irony is that Haneke is very, very good at the genre he appears to hate: His anti-suspense measures prove far more upsetting than the usual thriller gear-grinding, which is why thrill junkies are already salivating over the movie’s opening day, eager to watch Haneke launch his assault upon an unsuspecting megaplex audience. I might even show up myself, just to see the suckers flinch. That’s entertainment.
-- Jim Ridley, L.A. WeeklyMichael Haneke's nearly shot-for-shot English-language remake of his 1997 Austrian thriller "Funny Games" has to be one of the most perverse experiments in cinema history—more so even than Gus Van Sant's "Psycho," which at least had the advantage of updating a film that people consider fondly. Haneke's film, by contrast, doesn't play the audience like a piano so much as rap its fingers for touching the keys; his tone is deliberately aggressive, confrontational, and scolding, and many of the critics, festival-goers, and arthouse audiences who saw "Funny Games" in '97 responded with equivalent outrage and contempt. A chilly and extraordinarily controlled treatise on film violence, "Funny Games" punishes the audience for its casual bloodlust by giving it all the sickening torture and mayhem it could possibly desire. Neat trick, that.
-- Scott Tobias, The Onion A.V. Club
With "Funny Games," Michael Haneke's uber-disturbing remake of his own 1997 Austrian thriller, the director reasserts his omnipotence over all he surveys and constructs -- namely, a home invasion on Long Island's tony North Shore that features terror, murder, degradation and a Bunuelian bursting of characters' bourgeois bubbles, sans the Bunuelian laughs. It is a puppet-master's movie, a manipulation -- agit-prop dressed as absurdist black comedy. [...]Now it's your turn.Some may ask why Haneke felt compelled to remake a film that was so unpleasant to begin with.... As the original film's purpose was a critique of American-style media violence, what we have now is a challenging movie made more accessible, at least to Americans.
-- John Anderson, Washington Post“Why don’t you just kill us and get it over with?” George whimpers. His would-be killer’s reply — “What about entertainment?” — carries beyond the screen, where the voyeuristic masses are implicated in the gruesome spectacle of senseless cruelty. Are we, though? What if the guilt trip never takes off? Or, even worse, what if the American audience, cretins that we are, were to embrace Mr. Haneke’s vision not for its moral stringency but for the thrill of, say, watching Ms. Watts, bound at the ankles and wrists, hop around in her underwear? Who will be implicated then? I started out by calling Mr. Haneke a sadist, but it seems to me that he may be too naïve, too delicate, to merit that designation, which should be reserved only for the greatest filmmakers. [...]
... (If Mr. Haneke wanted to break into the American market, rather than take solace in the ambivalent embrace of the intelligentsia, he should have undertaken not a remake but a sequel.) The “Hostel” pictures and their ilk revel in the pornography of blood and pain, which Mr. Haneke addresses with mandarin distaste, even as he feeds the appetite for it.
-- A.O. Scott, New York TimesMichael Haneke's remake of his 1997 film is pure tension. I always complain about stupid victims; here, the victims are mature and privileged. Their arrogance -- bad things don't happen to people with a Long Island Sound summer mansion -- infuriates the viewer. These people cannot imagine anything bad ever happening to them. It's their downfall. [...]
German director/writer Michael Haneke presents a subtly frightening experience that American audiences haven't seen before. It's slow and deliberate. Except for some foolishness by the victims -- don't bother to pick up a knife but keep blow-drying the wet cell phone -- Haneke's style and the harrowing ending makes this the most chilling, best movie I've seen so far this year.
-- Victoria Alexander, Films in ReviewHating Michael Haneke’s Funny Games would be altogether too easy, because that’s exactly what the movie wants you to do. Deliberately despicable, it’s an outrageous provocation aiming for obscenity. That it is also a model of impeccable craftsmanship makes it perhaps even more bothersome. An art-punk lecture gone weirdly wrong, the film works in ways the director presumably never intended. But the nasty thing works all the same.
-- Sean Burns, Philadelphia Weekly"Who on earth would want to see that?”
—Overheard at a Los Angeles multiplex during the trailer to Michael Haneke’s "Funny Games"“That was weird, but I kind of want to see it again.”
—Overheard following the midnight premiere of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival[...]
"Funny Games" offers a genuine revelation... in the form of the 26-year-old American actor Michael Pitt ("Last Days," "The Dreamers"), whose performance as the film’s alpha intruder, Paul (played in the original version by "Benny’s Video" star Arno Frisch), rivals Malcolm McDowell’s iconic turn in "A Clockwork Orange" in its balletic, gleeful amorality. It’s a performance so commanding, in fact, that it shifts the focus of the film from the homeowners to their uninvited guests. “In the Austrian version, you had the impression that the main parts are the parents, and now it’s different,” Haneke concurs. “Now you know that [Paul] is the main part.”
But the greatest strength of Haneke’s film remains its unceasing conceptual rigor. Seen a decade ago, the movie’s hard-line critique of media violence and its transformation of human torture into a spectator sport might have seemed a tad reactionary. In 2008, it feels like a high-IQ smart bomb launched into the culture of commemorative Abu Ghraib snapshots, the endless slo-mo looping of the 9/11 attacks, and the use of odds-making vernacular to turn everything from the Iraq war to the presidential election into their own brand of funny games.
-- Scott Foundas, from an interview with Haneke in the L.A. WeeklyHaneke, the Austrian director whose "Cache" explored like-minded themes of paranoia, menace, and toggling realities (the hero's reality, and the moviegoer's), is devilishly smart. He's an adept manipulator who goes one better by calling attention to his manipulations, questioning them, and then, still, managing to freak us out in the coldest, cruelest ways.
-- Steven Rea, Philadelphia InquirerAlthough derived from the siege situations memorably played out in "The Desperate Hours," Sam Peckinpah’s "Straw Dogs," or John Brahms’ agreeably hokey 1967 feature "Hot Rods to Hell," Haneke’s film refuses the cathartic release of those earlier movies. The particular greatness of "Straw Dogs" was in Peckinpah exercising recognizable social tensions surrounding sex, imperialism and machismo. "Straw Dogs" triggered the American appetite for justice or kick-ass resolution and then—masterfully—scrutinized it. Only people without Peckinpah memories will buy Haneke’s specious claim to modern sophistication. [...]
Haneke’s cruelest, chicest ploy comes when Paul taunts Anna to pray. She doesn’t know how, but the serial killer does; rigging her in a pathetic, supplicating position so that Haneke can dare a God-is-dead provocation. This hopeless message is now fashionable among the movie-culture elite. That explains the critics’ dismissal of Neil Jordan’s The Brave One, which explored human connection and the nature of vengeance in the post-9/11, post-feminist world. It’s also why the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men is willfully trivialized as a horror-comedy; critics misinterpret the ending as nihilistic, deliberately overlooking the spiritual hope expressed in Tommy Lee Jones’ wry concluding dream. Paul’s demand that Anna and George gamble on their fate recalls the Coens’ superior moment when Kelly Mcdonald rejects Anton Chigurh’s wager as phony existentialism. Haneke’s two-hour gambit is similarly perverse.
-- Armond White, New York PressIt doesn't take long for you to realize that, as part of the audience, you are being held captive, as well. With one difference: Unlike the unlucky family in the film, you chose to be there.
And yet you'll see that I've given this film a positive review. How can that be, if it's an intellectual version of "Saw"?
Because in this case, ratings are almost impossible. Yes, I'm calling it a good movie. I could just as easily have called it a bad one. "Funny Games" exists somewhere beyond that kind of qualitative evaluation, or at least outside it. [...]
It's not a fun ride, but "Funny Games" forces us -- almost against our will -- to examine its characterization of violence and our response to it.
-- Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona RepublicAt heart, “Funny Games” is a stern rebuke to everyone who laughed a little too loudly at the scene in Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” where the man in the back of the speeding car gets blasted all over the upholstery. Morally, he’s right; cinematically and dramatically in “Funny Games,” he’s a bit of a pill. The differences between the two versions of “Funny Games” are telling. In the original the louche young sociopaths turned to the camera at odd moments and treated the viewers as their partners in crime. This happens in the remake less often, I think. Yet without the Brechtian ironies, what good is this thing?
I don’t know if any major director—and Haneke certainly is that, despite his willful waterboarding of the audience—can create something of real value when settling for such a blatant photocopy of an earlier work. So why does a comparative lark such as “Cache” work its own games so insinuatingly? Because it is not an exercise, or a theatrical contraption. It’s a film with its own sureness of tone and sense of the unknowable. By contrast “Funny Games,” the U.S. remix, is just a dubious idea fulfilled.
-- Michael Phillips, Chicago TribuneIt’s one thing to make a movie filled with mayhem and then implicate the audience for watching it; it’s another thing entirely to come back ten years later with the same movie, hype it with a marketing campaign, and try to implicate the viewer again. One nice thing about America is that you can’t be tried twice for the same crime.
-- J.R. Jones, Chicago ReaderBut hang on: Despite the sight of Watts hopping around bound up and in lingerie, it's not an exploitation film. It's a critique of you for consuming them. Peter breaks the fourth wall several times, looking into the camera during the misery and asking, "Do you think they stand a chance?" and "Do you think it's enough?" After Ann makes a bold move, the film rewinds and takes it away. See how you're getting played, you gullible jerk? [...]
But that's outweighed by the tedium of the action — a looooong scene of Watts hopping from living room to kitchen nearly did me in — and of whatever statement he's trying to make about the consumption of violence. Are you complicit for watching the stuff? Would you be less of a jerk if you walked out? Is he wallowing in the thing he's critiquing and consequently a bigger jerk?
-- Mark Rahner, Seattle Times… I won’t say more, although I’d love to bury you under a mound of spilled beans. I watched to the end, removed the DVD from the player, and snapped it over my knee. Then, with a pair of scissors, I cut the halves into quarters, walked the pieces to the kitchen garbage can, and shoved them under the debris of the previous night’s dinner. It only hit me later that my melodramatic response would have delighted the director. It takes a special kind of talent to drive a critic who enjoys zombie cannibal pictures to cry, “Unclean!” [...]
The sociopaths of Funny Games are monstrous, but Haneke also seems to be mocking the American family they ravage for its privileged obliviousness.
I say “seems to be” because it’s difficult to grapple with serious themes when what comes through most vividly is the director’s sadism. In the end, the film is little more than high-toned torture porn with an edge of righteousness not unlike Peter and Paul’s. The home-invasion genre ("Panic Room," etc.) is an especially nightmarish one: Audiences flock to these thrillers because of an implicit compact with the filmmaker that the invaders will be vanquished and the family unit saved. You could make the case that Haneke deserves a measure of respect for showing us how pathetically dependent we are on that compact and its cathartic endings. You could, but I won’t, because Haneke’s assault on our fantasy lives is shallow, unimaginative, and glacially unengaged—a sucker punch without the redeeming passion of punk.
-- David Edelstein, New York Magazine
Hi Jim!
Just curious. How many other 1/2 star films do you devote three separate posts/ discussion forums to?
JE: Hi Harry! If you've read the review and the posts, you already know the answer to that question! And why.
I just want to say this before I bow out of the experiment:
If Mr. Haneke wanted to break into the American market, rather than take solace in the ambivalent embrace of the intelligentsia, he should have undertaken not a remake but a sequel.)
A.O. Scott is a genius.
As a filmmaking student, the only reason I am thinking about seeing the film now, is because of all the discussion around it. It seems to have done what it was supposed to do, at least to a certain extent, being disturbing the audience. At the same time, I heard that all the violence happens off-screen. So what I'd be interested in is finding out how, technically, he created such a visceral experience.
I haven't seen "Funny Games," but the idea here is absolutely nothing new.
Let's go back some eighty years. Here's the master Luis Bunuel, introducing his new film "Un Chien Andalous":
"I don't want the film to please you but to offend you. I would be sorry if you enjoyed it."
When they liked it, he was pissed.
"`A successful film' is what the majority of people who saw it thought," he later said. "But what can I do about people who are pray for anything new, even if
the novelty outrages their inmost convictions, or about a venal or
insincere press, or about the pack of imbeciles who found beauty or
poetry in what is, in essence, nothing less than a desperate,
passionate appeal to murder?"
Filmmakers since then have been a little more pointed (if less artistic or interesting.) Virtually everything that has been said or is being said about "Funny Games" could be applied just as equally to Pasolini's 1975 "Salo" -- a Pavlovian experiment in audience response if ever there was one. An adaptation of the Marquis de Sade's "120 Days of Sodom" set in Fascist Italy, it asks the auddience to sit and watch young people being tortured, murdered, humiliated and raped, and there's an extended scene of coprophilia that makes "Two Girls, One Cup" look like "Finding Nemo."
Over the course of two interminable hours, it becomes very clear that Pasolini isn't examining the sadomasochistic roots of Fascism so much as he is demonstrating it; Pasolini has assumed the role of the whipmaster and you, in the audience, are his willing victims. The question isn't "Why are you showing me this?" The question is why the audience continues to sit there.
These are the kind of experiments you really need to only sit through once, which is why "Funny Games" has descended several steps on my must-see list.
"Anyone who leaves the cinema doesn't need the film, and anybody who stays does." --Hanake
So, this is a psychology experiment? Fine. I'd accept that. Provided I get my $10 back if I decide to walk out. Otherwise I'll keep my money, thanks.
And then there's Michael Phillips:
"At heart, “Funny Games” is a stern rebuke to everyone who laughed a little too loudly at the scene in Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” where the man in the back of the speeding car gets blasted all over the upholstery."
Actually, I got that rebuke from Pulp Fiction itself. I laughed out loud, not at the shooting, but at Travolta's line: "I didn't MEAN to shoot him!" At first viewing I thought it funny enough to laugh at. Upon reflection, I couldn't tag exactly what was funny about such a casual approach to violence, where the character would apologize for blowing the guy's head off the same way he'd apologize for spilling wine on the carpet. (Who was it who said, Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog: It can be done but the subject tends to die in the process.) At least Tarrantino got the point across (intentionally or not) in one scene.
I have my own answer to Harry Lime's question: Because the review is unfair, and it will spur a lot of outraged readers on to participate in the discussion.
In a way, Emerson is manipulating us just like the movie does. It's just a simple equation: Extreme indignation = Reaction.
When I saw "Caché" I thought Haneke was a pretentious phony, if you forgive the redundance. Now I read about Funny Games and I realize he's a sadist, pretentious phony. Thanks for the warning.
Mr. Emerson,
I "look forward" to Michael Haneke's "Funny Games," not because it's going to be "entertaining" (which it likely won't), but because it will provoke the sort of thought which only an Austrian writer-director's shot-by-shot remake of his earlier 1997 film (but this time in English w/ major acting talents throughout) can do... In short, it's worth discussing, and whether I agree with your take on the film or not, at least you've accomplished the one legitimate goal this film could have! Cheers?!? :)
Haneke says "Anyone who leaves the cinema doesn't need the film, and anybody who stays does." What an arrogant statement, since nobody "needs" a film. We go out to the cinema to be entertained. Period. Any side effect, eg: educational, moral or ethical insight etc. is all just fluffy bonus. When the lights go down, we're all ready to take 2 hours of "once upon a time." If movies were made to change the world then the world would have changed considerably ages ago. No anti-violence movie has ever stopped violence.
So, when Mr. Haneke steps out of his film-school moralizing and wakes up to find that he is actually just making movies and getting paid for it too, let's see if he can go back to telling compelling stories like Cache.
All I want to know is does Naomi Watts kill the little bastards in a satisfying way. If so I will probably see it. If not, why bother. I will suffer as long as I can get gratuitous satisfaction at the end. Let me know. DC
JE: A Shatnerian response! Beautiful.
What's up with all the italics? Is it a Haneke style experiment? If so it makes my eyes hurt.
Alex: Thank you. You got it.
Jonathan: Yes, it was part of the... oops, I just forgot to close one of my tags.
This is not so much about Funny Games, which, even though I love Naomi Watts I have no interest in seeing, as about Haneke. My liking for his work didn't make it beyond the interviews on the DVD of Cache, where he went on about how there's no on else out there making the kind of dreamlike and complex films he's doing...no one. Not even the name he conspicuously neglects to mention and which immediately came to my mind, David Lynch. The same Lynch who I'd be willing to bet Haneke borrowed the idea of a couple receiving creepy, anonymous video tapes of the outside of their house from. Personally I'd say that there's no shame in that, as borrowing and doing one's own variation on a theme (as Haneke did) has produced numerous great works over the centuries. But in those interviews there's an unpleasant arrogance and shiftiness that lurks in the cracks of his even tones, to the point where it made me think less of the movie I'd just watched. Especially the idea (and I could certainly be looking at it too simply, but he seems to support it with some of the things he says in the interview) that Daniel Autiel's character not only feels guilt about what his clueless younger self unwittingly caused, but that maybe he SHOULD. And that that constitutes moral complexity. Uh, no.
So, at bottom, the funniest game of all is Haneke conning all you critics into devoting so much space and energy to a film not worth a whole star.
Right now that idiot who made "Chaos" is renting a house in the Hamptons . . .
"We go out to the cinema to be entertained. Period. Any side effect, eg: educational, moral or ethical insight etc. is all just fluffy bonus."
Um, nothing personal, but speak for yourself, please. Some of us occasionally seek out certain films, directors, styles, etc. with an opposite mindset; sometimes we're actually there more for the "insight" and if it's also entertaining, then *that* is the fluffy bonus. (And I'm not saying that's a better or more meaningful way of looking at art. I'm just saying it happens.) Although I guess this also begs the question of "what is entertainment?" which pretty much plays right into the whole FG tangent.
I mean, plenty of people think stuff like Schindler's List is great, worthwhile art...but I don't know if I'd call it *entertainment* per se.
"Anyone who leaves the cinema doesn't need the film, and anybody who stays does."
I think people may misinterpret the meaning of this statement. It's not necessarily scoffing at those who "need to stay." However, your reaction to a film like this (and whether you're willing to endure it) is a reflection of your personality. Did it occur to no one that this statement applies to every film ever made?
I'm most likely going to see this (the negative reviews are too provocative to let me ignore it). I don't know if I'll endure the whole thing or why, but I may know myself better by the time I walk out of the theater.
Todd, Matt: Warmer... warmer...
Matt: Please report back about what you learn from the experi...ence.
Todd, good point. I was a bit hasty when I used the term "fluffy bonus" (hmm, good name for a band). I too seek out films for insight, social commentary and controversy - the kind that create great conversations afterwards. I just can't stand when directors claim they are going to change lives or create ripples in the social fabric like Haneke implies in his interviews. He's part of that club that sees film as a tool for manipulation or a lecture podium rather than an extension of the great and powerful storytelling tradition. In the end, he'll be at the mercy of the almighty box office.
For what it's worth, as of this writing, here's one measure of the critical reaction:
Metacritic.com
original 72% positive
remake 39% positive
Rottentomatoes.com
original 61% positive
remake 45% positive
Having seen the original, one of the most tension-inducing "entertainment" experiences of my life (right up there with watching Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer, and riding the DropZone ride at the amusement park), I think I'll pass on the remake.
But I'm enjoying the heck out of the discussion!
You have to take Jim and all other critics with a grain of salt, what they have to say doesn't necessarily represent the typical movie folk. Look on Eberts page for instance, Jim gave it 1/2 a star, users gave it 4 stars. hmmm, wonder why (wink wink) All critics do is try to poison viewers minds to fit their own tastes, too bad with some sheep it actually works. I on the other hand will go along with the 4 star folks.
The only vote that counts is the one at the boxoffice. I'm voting "no".
Chris: Warmer ...warmer... hot!
Haven't seen either film, but the trailer sure reminds me of the original trailer for A Clockwork Orange with the ironic use of classical music and the big splashy title cards. If your description of the film is accurate, then it sounds like the trickery is the same too: trying to make a chore of a film seem like a delightful over-the-top black comedy.
Okay, I've seen it, and I'm officially going to Hell.
I liked the movie.
The thesis is complete bullshit, but I liked the movie.
Why did I like it? Honestly, I enjoyed watching the characters interact and try to reason their ways into or out of these horrible situations. I definitely get connections to Hostel (if Roth had a cast like this, I might consider seening more of his stuff), but to me it felt closer to A Knife In The Water (I think this was intentional), Blue Velvet (someone else mentioned Lynch already), or even Haneke's far more disturbing film Cache.
Maybe because I was prepared for the worst or maybe because I'm too familiar with conventions, I was (dare I say it?) entertained by the ways Haneke kept pulling the rug out from beneath me (moreso from the rest of the audience; wow I'm arrogant!), as if to say, "Dear audience, I hate you!" I get a kick out of that sort of thing when I feel in on it.
I also felt like the themes on violence as entertainment he was going for (interesting, but underwhelming in the film) was secondary to more fascinating explorations of behaviorist theory and reinforcement, which again comes back to my liking the characters' interactions more than Haneke's actual intentions. Torture porn? Absolutely. But it's psychological torture as opposed to the physical torture you normally get (there's only one scene of onscreen violence, and for reasons I won't go into, it doesn't even really count).
As a statement about fictional violence, Haneke seems to be talking out of his ass. I'd like to hear him defend the "realism" of the remote control scene or hear why, if violence is so horrible as entertainment, he works it so often into his own films (the old Oliver Stone syndrome).
By the way Jim, you were absolutely right about a more enthusiastic audience response than Haneke likely intended. Many people in the screening were enjoying themselves much more than I was (or at least more vocally). Some people walked out when Naomie Watts undressed. A group of kids were kicked out for sneaking in (after it was more than halfway through). To my surprise, no one walked out when they were trying to get the phone to work (but things sure got quiet all of a sudden).
In short, the experiment was a total failure, but if you ignore it, you might find yourself entertained.
I haven't seen any of the FG films, and after reading detailed descriptions of their "plot", I don't even want to. I know the story, I know the actors, and if Haneke refuses to show any violence (not that it would attract me to go), than I'd rather use my imagination and not shell out money to use it during a screening.
I seriously think that Hostel Part I & II have relevant messages about our attraction to violence - we are disgusted by torture but cheer for the cold-blooded killings of the hero. But at least the Hostels were films, and not experiments. Without seeing it, FG reminds me of a short story by Barthelme, who wrote the whole five pages of the story in one sentence. After the first two lines, there is no reason to read further, you already figured out what he's going for.
One of the most well-known film critics in my country - also one of my university lecturers - said to us privately that we should let a film have its effect on us. If it's slow - fall asleep. If it's boring - take a walk outside. If it's horrible - leave the cinema. I walked out of Atonement because of that godawful long shot at Dunkirk ("Look, war is crazy! Look, look, LOOK! LOOK FOR FIVE MINUTES!"), and as for Funny Games...my walking out starts with not even going in.
David from Budapest
There was once a snobbish student in the corner of my philosophy class at college. He occasionally offers his hand to contradict the teacher or ruefully laugh about a student's sophomoric conclusion, while offering up nothing very useful on his own. His name was Todd, and he was a dick.
The original Funny Games was Todd in cinematic form. It was a cruel, silly picture that thought it was saying something when all it did was implicate the viewers' perspective on violence. As someone who was already clear on his views of violence in media (okay if we're empathetic to their plight, otherwise gratuitous), the film said nothing new to me. Of course, the only point of the film, like that jerk in the corner, was to get our attention, be it appreciative or resentful.
Screw you, Funny Games. And I'm still not too hot on Todd, either.
Thank you, Ellen Kirby, for being the only other person I can think of willing to bring up the similarity between CACHE and LOST HIGHWAY, at least in the way the information is imparted. I recall that film's release, I recall thinking that the premise was straight out of LOST HIGHWAY, and I recall that not a single review I read (and I read many) mentioned LOST HIGHWAY at all.
And I too was really off-put by Haneke's arrogance in the interviews. As you say, there's no shame in borrowing a premise if you take it somewhere else, as Haneke does... but why does completely neglect to mention Lynch's name? I doubt his use of the videotapes was a coincidence, as the family in CACHE is named "Laurent," a name of an important character in Lynch's film.
I closed my review of this film with this paragraph - thought it might be relevant to the discussion at hand:
"At the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. there is a light bulb on a stand. A plaque next to it explains that the bulb randomly turns on once every year for ten seconds. Your participation – how long you’re willing to stand there in the off chance you’ll see it light up – is part of the art. The exhibit is fascinating to think about and enjoyable to discuss, but it is neither compelling nor amusing to experience. Such is Funny Games. I’ve never had a more engaging post-film discussion, but I’ve never had a more miserable, manipulative, and soul-crushing cinematic experience either."
My 2 cents.
Evan: Brilliant analogy. I wonder how may people are still waiting for the light to come on, and what exactly will be illuminated if it does...
Saw the movie last night, very wary about the torture, but ended up mezmerized. All violence is off-screen; all implications of that violence are on-screen, the exact opposite of Hollywood. The flashing red block-letter titles and credits, accompanied by blaring punk were priceless. Watts, laboriously hopping past her dead son to relieve the pain of blaring Nascar TV was genius. 1/2 through, Haneke gives us the great pleasure and relief of passing an excruciating, ultilmate survival test. Haneke is not criticizing American audiences at all; he's criticizing Hollywood, and their world-wide audience, so AO Scott shouldn't be so defensive.
I don't think the film warrents half a star, Mr Emerson. It's technically a well made film, brilliantly acted and well executed. You're just offended and frustrated with the so-called academic exercise Haneke has put you through. I'm not the sort who only treats film as entertainment, I'd prefer that it provoked me in some way instead of mildly amuse me in a forgettable way. I haven’t watched a lot of horror films or torture porn films, but I know that in Funny Games, he’s breaking all the genre rules of horror films that make them fun and entertaining. The criminals get away with their crime, there’s no character motivation for the killings, and the whole family gets killed, maimed and humiliated, there’s no escape valve from this horrific story to make this movie easy and entertaining. And on top of that, Haneke has a smug and condescending attitude towards America’s love of torture porn and horror movies that he freely demonstrates this through the two serial killers in the film. I can see why a lot of critics hated this film, they felt like they got cheated by a high brow European. It’s not badly acted, badly written or badly shot, so at least give credit where credit is due as to the quality of the film and Haneke’s ability to absolutely engage you. I keep hearing people say the film is pointless, but never that it’s boring since the film has a sickening ability to twist your stomach in a knot, whether you like his high brow pretensions or not.
There are a million movies in circulation right now that invite us to indulge in the visceral sensation of violence. From the highbrow to the low, a basic function of American cinema is action and movement.... we've unfortunately become afflicted by the bad habit of taking these conjoined prerequisites and situating them underneath the umbrella of violent spectacle. From Saving Private Ryan to Kill Bill to The Silence of the Lambs and Goodfellas, we delight in the suspense and release of violence, are awed by it, impressed by it.... especially as it runs parallel to basic rules of narration -- i.e. suspense and danger ameliorated by a morally satisfying conclusion.
Toward the middle of the spectrum there are more tempered films that provide thrills while ultimately asking questions about violence and morality (I'm thinking of the Jason Bourne films, or No Country for Old Men. I would not, however, include such fare as Saving Private Ryan or other ostensibly "serious," yet ultimately disingenuous, films about violence and destruction)
But.... There precious few films whose sole purpose is to get us to question our response to violent representation. In this case, I think Funny Games is a necessary film, far more capable of being beneficial to an audience than many of the films in either of the aforementioned traditions. Though it is far outnumbered by slaughter-fests and small time crime thrillers, Funny Games deserves a place at the table, certainly. It is disappointing that American film critics have somehow canonized (American) film audiences, who may actually deserve a "tsk, tsk" for the decades spent indulging in vicarious carnage. We have enough Kill Bills, why can't we make room for one Funny Games?
What this unbalanced equation hopefully illustrates is that, by virtue of vilifying a lonely, singular condemnation of our complacency vis-a-vis onscreen violence, we accept violence as an agreeable, if not predominant, form of cultural expression.
After watching Hostel II, experiencing nothing but an aesthetic delight in the murder and torture of young women, what damage could a film that asks us to consider more precisely these fascinations possibly do?
For a thriller to be successful, the lead character must suffer, so that our happy, cathartic endings are earned. We must root for the character to suffer in order for the narrative to follow the customary rhythms. Few filmmakers seem willing to confront this reality with skepticism, and it would seem fewer audience members are keen on being singled out for their complicity. My question is, why shouldn't we be? At least once.
I just watched the original Friday night and the remake Saturday morning.
The irony for me is that Haneke has created an effective and entertaining bit of sadism, if you're into that kind of thing, but he falls on his face with the ceaseless moralizing at the heart of his intent.
The winking at the camera and the off-screen violence and the final bit of trickery that is supposed to be so shocking, have the effect of distancing the audience from the horror when Haneke's real intention is to implicate it.
The only reason I caught the remake was to see how the movie played to an audience. Had there been discomfort followed by outrage, I would've tagged the film a success. Mostly however, there were giggles at the antics of Pitt and Corbet. The stuff that should've been horrifying got little response. People were most moved by the dog.
The problem Alison is that the entire film is predicated on Haneke's "high brow pretensions". He isn't interested in appealing to sadists. He has something to say. Since he achieves the former but fails at the latter, it's a hollow film and, technical proficiency aside (the acting was also quite good), the film has to be seen as a failure.
Thanks for the keen analysis, Craig. The audience response you describe is very much like the one at the critics' screening I attended, but that of course was only about 20 critics who were there for their jobs, not a paying crowd.
The dog thing doesn't surprise me in the least because that's one moment where the film slips into documentary: What are we really seeing when the dog's body falls out of the back of the Range Rover? Is that a real dog? A dead dog? A tranquilized dog? (I don't think the ASPCA would have allowed the latter.) We know everything else is "just a movie," but we aren't sure about that.
The tone of the film is like a finger-wagging lecture -- and I think it's especially about masochism (the audience's) and how much we're willing to take. But it is also a sadistic exercise (the film explicitly aligns itself with the tormenters, and pushes the audience into complicity with them, so we can ask ourselves how far we're willing to go) and I wish Haneke, through his film, took more responsibility for his own role as sadist/disciplinarian/manipulator. Those smirks and winks indicate he's enjoying "sticking it to" (or "raping" in his word) the audience. It takes two: a filmmaker who enjoys punishing his audience, and an audience willing to endure (if not enjoy) the punishment.
Torture? What torture?
At what point am I supposed to mind a film that does all of its worst stuff off-screen?
The crime of the film is that it gave Roth and Watts nothing to do. Aside from hopping around trying to get loose, they just sat there. No dialogue. No action. No reponse, really, except passive crying and moaning.
Trying to get an audience response to violence from this film is like trying to see how an audience will respond to pornograhy by showing them a film with no penetration. It's ludicrous.
Put the violence in the thing and screen it again or give me my money back. The one thing I should not have been in this film is bored. And I was--thanks to bad filmmaking.
Go back to Corman. There's a man who knows how to make a film. Eurotrash be damned!
@Mark
I would like to know how you would describe strangling a child with a pillow case if not as torture or the "worst stuff."
That is the point where about a third of our theater walked out (there were only 10 people, so thats not saying much). I almost wish I had walked out, but I figured that in doing so I would be justifying Haneke's experiment, and I stayed just to spite him.
Jim, Haneke's refusal to acknowledge his own complicity is indeed one of the galling things about the movie.
I have to admit, the finger-wagging didn't even really hit me until a little while after watching the original. I was still processing what I'd seen and the interview with Haneke on the DVD really rammed his intentions home. That was kind of the beginning of my highly negative reaction.
And I should add that it's unfortunate he's failed because there is an argument to be made about media violence. I suppose he should get some credit for starting a conversation, but in my opinion, starting the conversation is the easy part. Adding something to it is far more difficult and Haneke hasn't.
I have major problems with this trend of European filmmakers indulging in grand, ironically violent statements about Ameria. I'm no reactionary, far from it, but it's so hypocritical and falsely condescending. All too fashionable to trash us wholesale. I've not seen this one but reading about it makes me think of the vain cruelty of "Dogville." Funny that they seem to always have to get British and Australian actors to play Americans in these dubious exercises.
I wasn't as offended by Funny Games as so many apparently were. However to address the A.O. Scott comment about making a sequel that is a pretty darn good idea. In fact the sequel could be the story of two American boys who see the Austrian film Funny Games and decide to re-enact their own version with a bourgeosie American family. That way, it would have been easier for Haneke to get away with a shot-for-shot remake of the original, except this would be both a remake AND a sequel.
Either way, I'm glad SOMEthing's hit the theaters to provoke so much thought and discussion. NCFOM, TWBB and Zodiac (and even Juno) did a lot of that last year and I was wondering if such intelligent public discourse was possible again. Bravo!
I'm with Alison: the movie is powerful and well made. Jim, you should admit at least that. I guess your rating is just a way to keep people from the theaters, feeling obliged to protect the audience from such a dangerous film. You kept half a star (as even "Zero Stars" would attract some people), but Peter Howell (from the Toronto Star) chose to do just the opposite: he took half a star off (from a four star review) because of his moral responsibility as a critic:
Funny Games is one of Haneke's finest movies, both the original and this remake. The performances are outstanding across the board. The direction and writing are masterful. Why then, would I pull back from giving the film a full four-star rating?
Maybe it's because I want people to hesitate before rushing out to see it. Funny Games could ruin your whole day, as it did mine.
I'm reading criticisms about this "pedantic Austrian", and some of them address the director and his words even more than the film itself:
I was still processing what I'd seen and the interview with Haneke on the DVD really rammed his intentions home. That was kind of the beginning of my highly negative reaction.
Well, I the point is already clear in the movie. I didn't need any interview to get the point in 1997, but it looks like some viewers are still confused about it. Again, how come nobody is mention the films referenced here? Why don't we talk more about the film itself and less about its director? Maybe we could compare it with "Cape Fear", maybe the similarly unpleasant "Irreversible" or even the beloved "No Country for Old Men" (both this and FG have unstoppable villains, played by just the right actor to make them convincing).
Are you offended by this film? I was offended by "The Brave One", which repeats the same "Shooting criminals is OK!" propaganda from every other Hollywood film, but trying to make it pass as "real" and "gritty".
I have read your review, and all three posts and am still baffled by your decisions. I really don't even remotely understand your rationale for giving the film 1/2 star, especially after all the praise heaped on the equally violent No Country for Old Men. In fact both films do make some of the same points about the nature of people.
But I'm sure all these posts will get more people to go see the movie, so that's good because I liked the film nearly as much as the original and think more people would benefit from seeing it!
JE: As others have observed, with a film like this, 0 stars or 27 stars -- it's all the same. If I'd wanted to discourage interest in the movie I would have given it 2 or 2.5 stars. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Stay tuned for more...
Hi Jim --
A couple of years ago I had e-mailed you suggesting you check out Haneke's Time of the Wolf, which is his little-seen movie that he did between the Pianist and Cache. To me, it is the perfect example of the most pervasive element of Haneke's work; a desire to have his audience have "non-film" reactions to his movies and thus draw them in more.
In Funny Games, its the conspiratorial glances at the camera, in Cache it was the almost wholly unexpected suicide, etc. In Time of the Wolf, he did something truly horrible; he has two different animals (I think it was donkey and a sheep),killed on screen in a matter of fact way. He didn't prepare you for it (of course not; and if I remember, one of the killings happened in the near background, uncommented on by the actors), and it was done in the most awful ways: if I remember right a shot to the head and for the other animal a knife to the throat. Needless to say there was no "No animals were harmed in the making of this film" disclaimer at the end. I suppose it's possible that it was cgi, but nothing I read about the film indicated it was anything less than real.
He was pulling the same trick that Peckinpah pulled in the Wild Bunch when he blew the bridge with the horese on it; he was selling the "reality" of the film by showing us animals in jeopardy; animals that had no way knowing what was happening and thus generating a primal, instinctual revulsion in the audience.
On one level I hate Haneke for this. I ran a large animal shelter and love animals deeply; how dare this jerk do this on film to generate a reaction? On another level I loved the film though; I love watching Hanecke explore his audience's expectations while never conforming to American filming conventions. I loved the first Funny Games and will probably love this one; yet I fully understand why everyone else hates them both.
Even if I hated the first one, I'd be happy that he is that rare European director that didn't come over here and sell his soul (Wolfgang Peterson, Uli Edel, and Paul Verhouven I'm talking to you!... and I'm especially happy he didn't do what the guy who did the original "the Vanishing" and the came to Hollywood and redid the movie, but changing the very things that made the first film so compelling. Right or wrong, I'm glad they didn't pull out the very things that made the original so shocking and compelling in an effort to "Americanize" the thing.
Alex, I can't speak for Mr. Emerson, but since you quoted me also, I'll speak for myself.
I gave the remake 3 stars for being an effective bit of suspense and I subtracted a star for not improving on the original and for pissing me off.
Perhaps people are so quick to insert Haneke into the debate because he was quick to insert himself into the movie with the characters winking and smirking at the camera.
I don't know about you, but I don't think the serial killers played that big of the part in the film for me. It was all about the family and their suffering, and the killers are offscreen for about 20 minutes of the film. But you're all harping on the snide winking of the camera by the serial killers (who represents Haneke's moralizing about american film violence). I liked Rick Groen's Globe and Mail review of the film: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080313.wfunny14/BNStory/Entertainment/home
He's right about the film being split between the realistic portrayal of the family and the artificial performance of the serial killers. and I think the core of the film is the family, and for me, it's what made the film powerful.
I think Haneke does his own film a great disservice by his often quoted statement: "Anyone who leaves the cinema doesn't need the film, and anybody who stays does." It has already put people on the defensive and from reading that one quote, a guy decided not to watch it! If anything, Haneke is taking Godard's advice: the best way to critique a film (in this case, torture porn films) is to make a film in response. I think all this discussion about how obnoxious and anti-american violence haneke is, is a distraction from the actual film.
JE: At the risk of sounding as self-congratulatory as Haneke, I think another good way to critique a film is to question the film's (and the filmmaker's) assumptions about the audience, to take it apart and look at what it does or doesn't do on various levels -- which is what I'm finding so interesting about these discussions in the "Funny Games experiment" posts (I made a separate Category for them in the right-hand column). I think you may be giving Paul and Peter (Tom and Jerry, Beavis and Butthead) the short-shrift, though. Paul is the only one who speaks directly to the audience. That's a privileged position. Part of the trouble with the film, in my opinion, is that they are abstractions to whom the actors playing the family members (who, really, are no more developed as Victims than the others are as Villains) have relatively naturalistic responses. That's what makes it seem like a lab experiment to me. I think the film identifies with the perpetrators on certain levels and the victims on others -- and that's what makes it worth talking about at all. I give it credit for that. If only it wasn't so transparent and self-conscious about it. Notice how often the camera's "gaze" is from the victimizers' POV or a third "neutral" position after the egg scene at the beginning. For example, the camera looks down at Ann over Paul's shoulder when he forces her to pray. What's the psychological effect of that?
I may see it one day but if I do it'll be DVD. I resent the commentary already and don't appreciate sacrificing narrative for a thesis statement. And to be honest I've seen probably hundreds of violent movies with varying reactions depending on each film and I can honestly say I'm not desensitized. You want to know why? Because somebody showed Daniel Pearl being beheaded on video and the image still haunts me to this day. I will never watch another video like it again. From what I've heard about Funny Games, it all sounds just plain condescending. Besides "No Country For Old Men" screwed with out expectations pretty effectively as it is.
Interesting respnose I haven't read from any of the major critics regarding "Funny Games" success as the kind of film it condems.
http://www.avclub.com/content/blog/a_funny_response_to_funny_games
I'll first state I haven't seen this or the original, and intend to view neither. Normally that would make me feel I shouldn't comment, but in this case it apparently doesn't matter.
Having said that, my first thought on this was that I found the remake odd. I can't help but wonder how much money is being made from this? Certainly it's enough to afford those big-name actors.
The whole "experiment" seems hypocritical and, as has been observed, extremely pretentious. There are ways to make this point- the most reasonable I think would be to write a book discussing the issue as a filmmaker. This would add to the discussion (to allude to the comments of Craig Kennedy above), though it would not generate the amount of publicity this movie has- whatever I think of the film and the director, I must credit him with that much (however, I suspect that while he is stimulating the discussion, if not adding to it, it is not done for its own sake entirely; I can't accept that the director's ego has nothing to do with it).
But back to the issue. Haneke wants to discuss it. Being a filmmaker, he wants to make a film. Perhaps he made one with something to say on the nature of violence or a violent media? No- he simply made a violent film, and talked about how wrong it was to like it. Yet he still profits from everyone who goes to see it- and I fail to see how that leaves him with any credibility whatsoever.
He says that if someone stays they need it, if they leave they don't- well and good, except that if they stay, they probably won't realize why they need it, making the thing an utter failure. And given that he said that, he should, if he is as intelligent as everyone says, know it's an utter failure. But he still made it. Twice.
And I can hardly stand the positive reviews I've seen, here and elsewhere- they all seem smug, lamenting how all those bad people like those terribly immoral movies! And about how this is a film for INTELLIGENT PEOPLE- presumably like the person who knows enough to give it a positive review, who really understands it! But no one that can think critically has any need for it. It is not a mark of great intellectualism to think that violence in media is a problem. That is glaringly obvious to all but the most dimwitted. The film is therefore unnecessary, and seems to exist only to preach, or to allow those that agree with it to pat themselves on the back. I have no use for either.
I see many missed chances here. He could have made a film that is not the violent thing he finds fault with. He could have made a violent one that worked to make the audience think about the consequences of violence, and make them uncomfortable with enjoying it, while still working as a film and trying to tell a story, instead of telling no story at all as he does, and not even making a coherent movie, instead utilizing things like the remote scene. Presumably, audiences are to stupid to get it unless he beats them over the head with it- and that attitude is exactly why I have chosen to simply avoid the "experiment" altogether.
A stunning film that leaves you exasperated, frustrated, and disturbed. The mark of a good film is its ability to say with you long after you saw in an attempt to understand it and what it means to you. Ultimately, it's provocative in the way a child would prod a hornet's nest with a stick, except these hornets prefer NASCAR*, fatty foods, and scary movies.
* It's an interesting statement by the director having Naomi Watts spend two minutes trying to turn off the NASCAR broadcast immediately after the antagonists' departure, instead of trying to take her restraints off.
Warmer ...warmer... hot!
Say it ain't so, Jim. If all you're doing here is the same thing Haneke was doing... ugh.
Look, you see this kind of stuff all the time in people who are (in general) very pleased with themselves. Nerds call it "social engineering" when they do it, I guess because "cruel manipulation for the sake of it" isn't as catchy or easy to be smug about. I'd take Haneke's intentions more seriously if:
1) The remake/small release factor did not absolutely guarantee that the only people who would "get" it in the way he wants are those who are already inclined to agree with him. In brief, the movie crosses on borders.
and
2) He did not launch a pre-emptive PR campaign that pretty much guarantees an adversarial response. No one can simply APPRAISE the film in the environment he (and you and others, I guess) have created; we must now be FOR or AGAINST it, as if we were talking about abortion or the death penalty. Curious that those who have no stake in the battle (the average movie audiences cited above) walk away pretty lukewarm. We're inclined to dismiss those people as unsophisticated; they may just recognize there's much ado about nothing here. Stripped of Haneke's loaded baggage, the film just falls flat.
Come on, Jim. Tell me you're not just "experimenting." We all know that's just code for "being a dick."
JE: Don't worry, Ken, I'm not being disingenuous. I haven't said anything I don't absolutely mean -- I'm not playing Haneke's game, because I reject the premise of his experiment. But to the extent that he sets up a game and then breaks the rules... well, that's simply a matter of turning the tables (which is what I think the movie is about -- not about violence at all) and, as I said, two can play at that game!
OK, that's a relief. I have a little story on why that set me off.
Awhile ago I worked in radio. One morning we had a local celebrity movie reviewer (who does TV, mostly) come on and talk about some movies. Afterwards he said he actually was intrigued by a movie he'd viciously panned on-air. I asked him why the contradiction, and he said "to drive more people to it, just out of curiosity's sake."
Still not sure how I feel about that.
JE: That doesn't seem very creative to me. Or very ethical from a critical OR journalistic standpoint. Besides, he's assuming the point of a review is to "drive" people toward or away from a movie, which is a pretty arrogant approach even for a consumer reporter/reviewer. (Does he really think he has that much influence over people's moviegoing decisions?) A much more interesting (and honest) approach, if he really felt conflicted about the movie, would be to say so -- to lay out his objections, and then admit he was intrigued by certain aspects of it. If you make the verdict more important than the analysis (when you have a nuanced response to a film), you're not doing anybody any favors.
I remember an interview with George Clooney a few years back when "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" was released. There was a lot of talk about how Barris was a founding father of "Reality TV" and the interviewer asked Clooney his thoughts on the genre. He said something like "We all slow down to look at the wreck at the side of the road, but I think it's irresponsible to create wrecks simply with the idea of slowing people down."
This comment stuck with me then, and resurfaced with a vengance during this current flap about "Funny Games".
It seems to me that the insatiable human appetite for "Reality" TV (which is just at least as rabidly popular in the "educated, cultured and broad-minded" countries of Europe) comes from largely the same dark corners of our collective soul that drive the market for "Realism" when it comes to exploitation/torture porn flicks.
What's more, it seems to me that the prevalence of these tendencies shouldn't come as much of a revelation to us - We already know that there lives within some of us (or perhaps within some part of each of us) a potentially unhealthy voyeuristic facscination with other people's suffering. Do we really need Haneke to tell us this? When he says:
"Anyone who leaves the cinema doesn't need the film, and anybody who stays does."
... Haneke makes a tacit assumption of extreme hubris. In essence he's saying that the only way to be appropriately sorted into one of his two categories will be to plunk down your ten bucks and play his "Funny Games": That the only way to be "pronounced clean" is to crawl through the muck and complain about how awful it smells. By this twisted logic the highest praise one could possibly give the film is not ever to see it (in which case why make it... twice?).
Personally, I doubt Hanecke's motives are nearly as pure as he'd like us all to believe. He knows as well as Tarantino or Rodriguez or the Cohens do that there's a huge popular market out there for movies that trade in graphic depictions of horrible suffering. He wants to trade in that market without "getting any on him", so he tries to innoculate himself by casting his wares as "social experiments" instead of entertainments.
But this is no experiment. Hanecke already knows that a certain segment of the moviegoing public will gladly pay to sit and watch this stuff for hours at a time. A substantial percentage of all entertainment marketing, profit, and production decision making (including, no doubt, his abilty to make and distribute "Funny Games" in the first place) is squarely based on this undisputed fact. He also knows that an even larger segment of the viewing public opts to avoid this sort of subject matter when making their ticket buys. Since there is nothing for him to learn here personally, the anti-violence "choir" is unlikely to show up and be preached to in a fashion they already abhor, and the folks in need of his "saving" have already demonstrated an unswerving willingness to lap up whatever extremes of abuse a filmmaker can throw at them, I'm at a loss to see the "higher moral point" here.
Is it possible that Hanecke is inadvertently right after all - the only people who will be willing to sit through "Funny Games" are people looking to satisfy their need for torture porn (and perhaps justify this need with a little bit of sanctimony as a cover). From here it looks like all he's really accomplished is to devise a new viral marketing scheme for essentially the same ol' same 'ol.
Jim:
I wouldn't be surprised if he felt it was his duty to guide/steer/whatever movie goers into certain theaters. He does most of his work on TV, and (with one obvious exception) there's just not a lot of depth to be found in that forum. He's a decent guy, but I have no idea how he is as a critic; I don't watch his show.
I'm glad to hear you say that about ambivalence, though. When I reviewed Apocalypto I flatly stated I didn't know what to make of what I saw. Mel Gibson is obviously a talented storyteller and he pulled off some amazing stuff in that movie, but... why? The "why" eluded me. That's the review I wrote, and I was pretty concerned how it would be received. To my relief, I read several other critics I respect come out with much the same ambivalence, and I got that rarest of critical hits: validation.
Brilliant, just brilliant! and I mean the film, Michael Haneke, and the cast especially Naomi Watts, the best actress of this generation.
Haneke hit his target right and spot-on on you so-called film critics the bottom-feeders of the Hollywood film industry, the hypocrites amongst the wide American audiences who're the biggest consumer of violence in films but don't want to admit it. This film exposes their conscience, gets into their psyche and tears it apart. It's a great job accomplished!
I believe a large account of Funny Games getting scathing reviews has to do with the fact that, simply, this movie is NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT. An All-American upstanding family getting tortured, their little boy killed in front of their eyes.. for no other reason than the entertainment of their captors? What? And the writer/director (who is not American) has the NERVE to present this movie to American audiences??
You can bet that, if this SAME MOVIE was known as being "based on a true story", or was linked with atrocities faced by some families during in a certain time/region, giving it an air of authenticity - it would be hailed as being "powerful" and "uncompromising".
Have seen the original, not the remake.
It is a brilliant film in many ways, not the least of which is that it succeeds on the base level of being a great black comedy. The dismissal of the film by many reviewers, who claim its pretentions as its fatal flaw, is in many ways well founded. This is not a film for everyone. Only for those who are deeply interested in film, which, of course, very few mainstream film critics are (very few). It's an intellectual film, an excercise in many ways, and Haneke admits it openly. Judge it for what it is.
I am only as defensive as the pandering critics are insulting to me others who appreciated the film, and who love Haneke's canon.
Not a torture-porn fan. At all. (I originally heard about this movie in a discussion of fourth-wall breaks, if you're wondering.)
Just wondering... if the audience is 'implicated' just for being there, does this mean that we get good karma for 'abetting' positive things that happen in happy movies? If not, why not?
Haneke's film is the combination of the dynamic sadism of the Lenin-caliber intellectual-revolutionary elite, and that of Hollywood's worst pimps and exploiters. It's a nasty hybrid, and should be boycotted universally, its authors prosecuted. Unfortuneately, it will be fairly popular, a new sensation. In fact, I wonder if we could sue Haneke and Watts and their producers in civil court for infliction of emotional distress. This film should not get a 1/2 star; it should simply register nothing - it's not a movie.
I saw Clockwork Orange at a young age, and I made it. If Funny Games is in the same vein, I'll be ok. I can't watch the torture films like Hostel or Saw though. I like stuff more along the lines of American Psycho. Where does this film fall in that range?
This is art! It shocks, compels, suspends your disbelief in mid air while slapping you senseless! I can easily say it's the best, most important film of the decade. This is powerhouse filmmaking at its finest. I won't kid around, Funny Games is an uncomfortable, agonizing ordeal but at the same time puzzling,exciting and pure evil fun. Of course, this flavor of cinema is an acquired taste.
I immediately described it to my friend as Clockwork orange meets American Psycho. Two of my all time faves. I have to say I think Funny Games is up there with both, possibly better. But I won't fool you, where those movies the entertainment value is on the surface, this one you have to be a lot more patient. The worst film I've ever seen in the vain of difficult to watch films (I'll let you know this is a genre to me in which I find enjoyment through my ability to endure these films and absorb the artistic merits) is Gaspar Noe's I Stand Alone. Simply because I didn't care about the main character at all, in fact I despised him, but I think that was the point. (The only thing I loved about that film was the warning that came with it and a few camera tricks.) In comparison, Funny Games has many great qualities as a film. One being the villains are cute, captivating con men who con people out of their lives. I've never had a more visceral reaction to a film and walked away feeling redeemed, almost like it was a religious experience, which makes the prayer scene seem like a nod to that fact. Although maybe that is a special bond only I experienced with this film, but I doubt it.
I agree with the comparisons to Bunuel and Lynch. Considering he's being lumped with these guys you must remember this a surrealist film. It must be consumed as such. Remorseless unmotivated sadistic behavior is at the core of surrealism, another one of the many reasons I loved this film. Don't take it so seriously, remember this movie has no rules. This is slapstick! A demented cartoon. Didn't anyone get the Tom and Jerry reference? and for those who haven't seen it don't think you can try to understand it by reading these reviews, cause you can't. For fans of suspense thrillers, the tension building is unparalleled in my opinion. It's by far some of the best acting I've ever seen all around, even the 10 yr old had me convinced he knew he was about to die. I really can't rave enough about this film. It says so much, not just about our cinematic bloodlust, but about consumerism (the AMEX credit card commercial comes to mind), primal instincts (or, in George's case, lack thereof) and what it means to be human by showing you what it means to be inhuman. I'll be analyzing it for months, probably years. I'm going to watch the original this weekend and then see the remake again. Yeah, that's how good. But then again, I'm a pretty sick guy, and maybe you're not.
I'll make a bet with you, I bet you won't be the same person after watching this film and you bet you will. Ha!
"Evil is fascinating." "Life is evil." "You must embrace evil." "You are evil." "BLAH, BLAH BLAH..."
Can't modern artists come up with any more original themes in their films? This does not shock me or provoke my thoughts, it just reminds me that people are and always will be PRIMAL and STUPID.
Identifying with the sadist is boring, cliched' and unoriginal. The barbarians who watch this stuff and praise it as "ground-breaking" are spoiled, arrogant and have way too much time on their hands.
Some months ago, I attended an early viewing of Funny Games at Harvard as part of a class. The director was there and there was a lot of discussion afterward when he had a chance to answer his audience's questions.
The reaction and dinner discussion later was very much a mixed bag. I gave up on the movie about twenty minutes after the baddies make their move with the golf clubs, and spent the next long while hiding in the restroom feeling guilty that I was on a class outing and hating the entire thing. Part of it is the way Haneke caricatures his protagonists, treating them as though they are fools - not having a ground phone line, not using a knife on the bad guys, not running into the van when Watts's character has the chance in the "warmer, warmer, hot" scene, not owning a gun ... the list goes on.
But the most notable aspect of the discussion was the way people judged it. The folks who were celebrating it as a masterful work of art often used it as a sort of metaphor for a) the shallowness of people who watch that kind of show, b) politics (and yes, I have heard the two killers described as stand-ins for Bush and Blair) and c) the pointlessness of violence.
The ones who disliked it judged it by a different criterion. Sure, it was well-made. But it violates the social contract of movie-making.
If you object to the idea of paying Aram Saroyan taxpayer money for the alleged privelege of printing his one-word poem "lighght", or dislike the idea of buying a music CD that was blank ("It represents the futility of blah blah blah! It's art!") or think that a short video which uses a peeled onion to symbolize one's emotional recovery is more a mockery of modern art than an example of it, then you probably won't like this movie.
Which means that Haneke has succeeded, in his own way: if you won't watch the movie at all because you're disgusted, then his message has gotten through. In some ways, it may be the most moral of films, since he will only make money from those who are willing to see such a thing. Everyone who goes to see it "to learn what all the fuss is about" is paying Haneke for a sharp lesson in rational thinking.
I love it when someone from the land that spawned Hitler lectures on morality.
Yes, and it also spawned guys like Freud, Popper, Wittgenstein, Kafka...
Please, don't judge all Austrians on one individual.
Mike has a point there. Austria is a country who got out scotch-free after WW2 in spite of its
enthusiastic collaboration with the Nazis.
The blatantly masochistic streak that pervades many of Haneke films could well have as its cause
this terrible sense of unexpieated guilt.
Surely ,thats what CACHE is all about.
Funny games is a revolutionary idea for a "scary movie." This movie has a multiple meaning and personality complex and finds humor in what is no. wall still amazingly executed by Michael pitt as Paul and Brady Corbett as peter. In my opinion the child wasn't properly cast but still overall a great success. to whom this movie scares and to recoil they leave the theater i say that the movie does not use violins as entertainment, it uses this as a tool of teaching a tool to shatter ones view of reality for just that hour and a half
Not worth wasting time watching such a painfully disturbing film (unless you don't get enough pain
and disturbance watching CNN etc. these days). No reward at the end...crime deserves punishment...especially in
fiction. I expect we'll be treated to a similar story..only a true one...on TV's 48 Hours some day...where some real-life psychopaths may have been
inspired by this film to imitate this kind of crap..or perhaps somewhere they already have.
I thought this film was really bad and feel disturbed after watching it. I actually had to look up the boy in the film just to see a picture of him away from the film. It was slow and took 10 minutes for the mum to sit around and think about untying herself. Also I thought the part where the bloke rewound with the controller was really stupid. The ending was rubbish and one of the things that annoyed me was the thing about the knife on the boat. You see the knife left on the boat and you think there will be a big dramatic ending where she saves herself, no luck there. The film wound me up and disturbed me because of the little boy being killed. Definetely one to miss
I just want the eggs.
@Sam
This is exactly how I felt after watching it, without thinking about what exactly this movie was trying to accomplish. I hated it, thought it was a total piece of trash...however, after reading some reviews and thinking on it a bit more, this is exactly what the director was trying to accomplish...I now have a greater appreciation for the film, would I want to watch it again, no, but I am wierdly fond of it.
You notice how many of the comments are basically "How dare you criticize your Overlords of the Enlightenment, you mouth-breathing prole!" The people making these "critics are stupid because they don't like pretension" comments are the reason why self-righteous d-bags like Haneke get more notice than they ought to. These people are the epitome of the stereotypical art-house scum: To them, film isn't entertainment, it's not meant to be enjoyable, it's meant to be all propaganda and "depth". It's not a show, but a pulpit.
Let me spell this out for you beret-wearing, clove-smoking, self-indulgent morons: You are being played. Each and every time you pay good money, money that could go to fixing the problems you think you see everywhere through charity and self-sacrifice, to be preached to by some film-school dropout who thinks that "everyone who isn't me is stupid and evil" is some sort of new and exciting message to send to the world, you commit crimes far worse than critics who dare to - gasp! shock! - CRITICIZE something on its merits or lack thereof.
I find it amazing that a movie that is as much of an exercise in making money off of people's most base and disgusting urges as it is an exercise in criticizing the practice of making money off of said urges is hailed as some sort of Christ-of-celluloid, while movies that take the same moralizing tone to speak unpopular truths without the extra layers of self-aggrandizing and "parody" are rejected as "preachy".
This movie is Scream for the art-house set: A "new, sharply critical statement" that's really just the same line we've heard before.