"Funny Games"
Sunday, March 16, 2008 at 12:23AM | By Franck Tabouring 
By Kevin Laforest, via montrealfilmjournal.com
Seen on: March 3, 2008
The players: Director: Michael Haneke, Writer: Michael Haneke, Cast: Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Brady Corbet, Devon Gearhart, Michael Pitt
Facts of interest: A remake of Haneke's own film from 1998.
The plot: Two young men take a family hostage in their own vacation home.
Our quick thoughts: How the hell did Michael Haneke convince a Hollywood studio to greenlight his latest exercise in audience punishment (which is actually an almost shot-by-shot remake of his own 1997 movie of the same name)? The man's pictures are already not universally loved in Europe, so the producers of "Funny Games" have to be aware that American audiences are probably going to reject the Austrian filmmaker's dark and uncompromising vision, right? I mean, even hardened cinéphiles might struggle to accept how Haneke not only manipulates the audience, he goes as far as to openly mock it!
"Funny Games" starts from a premise similar to that of many horror flicks. A married couple (Tim Roth and Naomi Watts) and their young son (Devon Gearhart) drive up to their holiday house where, soon after their arrival, they're confronted by psychopathic killers (Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet, disturbingly polite, playful and innocent-looking) and are forced to fight for their lives. Yet this is in fact sort of an anti-thriller, with no non-diegetic music, many long static shots, heavy silences and, overall, more uncomfortable moments and creepiness than actual suspense.
Haneke constantly makes us question his provocative mise en scène choices but at the same time, as seasoned moviegoers, we still often believe we can predict his next move, which is always a futile endeavor. Because on top of screwing with the codes of the genre, Haneke sometimes downright cheats, effectively breaking the "reality" of the film.
Intellectually, one can appreciate how "Funny Games" voluntarily takes apart the audience's tendency to identify with the victims. Then again, the despair and suffering of said victims is so convincingly rendered by the actors that it's not unlikely to get suckered in anyway and to root for them to make it out alive. In which case it will undeniably be frustrating to realize that Haneke couldn't care less whether the poor family manages or not to escape from their tormentors.
The final word: Basically, to truly enjoy the movie, one must instead position himself on the side of the filmmaker, who pulls the strings with no consideration for morals and dramatic conventions, only his own unhealthy pleasure. Which pretty much adds up to siding with the bad guys, perverted as that may be. Needless to say that this is not going to go well with those expecting another little scary movie with that blonde from "The Ring"!
Reader Comments (1)
I thoroughly enjoyed this flick, even though I cannot help but agree that this comically twisted film forced the viewer to question who they liked more; the well-mannered, murderous psychos, or the quaint, picturesque family.