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Funny Games
By: Joey
Magidson
Funny Games breaks all
the rules
Funny Games
is a movie that doesn’t seem to have any intention of pleasing. It
exists as an exercise on the part of the director Michael Haneke, who is
in fact remaking this film shot for shot from his 1997 movie, also
called Funny Games. The exercise seems to be that modern
thrillers and horror films have become too enjoyable and acceptable to
audiences, so he has set out (again) to make a film that is almost
impossible to enjoy. That makes a standard review of the film pretty
much a moot point, so instead I think I’ll focus on how well the
exercise works in the film.
We’re set up with a pretty standard home invasion thriller
type plot. Tim Roth and Naomi Watts are on vacation with their son and
their home is intruded upon by two young men, played chillingly by
Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet. They don’t want anything from them
however, they just seem to want to mess around with them and eventually
kill them (as well as feeding the exercise that this film is). Haneke
throws almost all the standard conventions and plot devices of similar
films out the window in his attempt to craft an entirely different form
of thriller. We are taught to expect the family to succeed, the stray
knife or gun to come into play, and the child to always survive. Some
of these are eliminated.
The exercise in question is put forth by actually involving
the audience in the film. The invaders periodically address the
audience, chastising us for rooting for the family to escape and kill
the home invaders. They also rewind one scene that originally would
have followed a Hollywood convention, showing it the second time as it
would (supposedly) happen in real life. By the end of the film, Haneke
wants us to be disgusted by not only what we have seen, but also by what
we have previously accepted in movies. The question is, does this work?
I think it does for the most part. The main reason it does
is that all the actors do very good jobs with the material. They
consistently elevate scenes and draw the audience in, sometimes against
their own will. They help to disguise the fact that this film is pretty
much not a plot driven film, but a social commentary on violence in
films. They keep you from realizing that Haneke is actually attacking
you the audience member at some points. Simply put, they save the film.
Though not really a film that would hold up too well on
repeat viewings (and even for people who’ve seen the original German
version, this new one is essentially useless. It’s the same film minus
subtitles.), Funny Games nevertheless is a worthwhile view
for people simply because it is an interesting exercise in making a
different type of film. Anyone in search of something very different
from the standard Hollywood thriller would benefit from taking a look at
Funny Games.
***/****
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