Funny Games
by Michael Haneke
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Actor: Arno Frisch, Frank Giering, Stefan Clapczynski, Susanne Lothar, Ulrich M?heDirector: Michael Haneke
Cinematographer: J?rgen J?rges
Writer: Michael Haneke
Editor: Andreas Prochaska
Producer: Veit Heiduschka
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: German (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox
Running Time: 108 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-01-26
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Fox Lorber
DVD Reviews of Funny Games
DVD Review: And a man's foes shall be they of his own house
Summary: 4 Stars
This grim movie can be seen as a metaphor for the rise of Nazism. The killers are clean-cut young men (significantly, in the American version, their hair is cut in a Hitler Youth style) who get inside the family's house apparently innocently. Once they are inside (like the Nazi youth Hitler mobilized in the early 30s) you can't get rid of them.
We see the one boy calmly making a sandwich in the kitchen while sounds of torture are heard in the next room. This is a very typical depiction of the German insensitivity to atrocity while enjoying everyday pleasures.
Significantly, when the wife prepares to run for help, the husband says "Forgive me." That is what countless husbands said at the railroad station after assuring their families that the Nazi movement was nothing. "Forgive me for being wrong."
The white gloves signify the impersonal machinery of the Nazi extermination machine. Millions are dead, but the hands of the perpetrators are clean.
In the American version both boys are well-built, with strong legs. In the German version the slight, dark-haired boy is the brains of the operation and his overweight partner is the mindless bully. This is a Nazi clich?, I think the American casting was better.
The most extraordinary shot of the movie is when the wife grabs the shotgun and kills one of the killers. But the other killer grabs the TV remote and rewinds the scene so that the gun is taken away from the wife. This is a distancing device that allows us to see that we're watching is a parody, an artificial presentation of violence.
In another display of filmwise irony, the husband tells the wife not to cooperate, they will die more quickly. The killer says, "No, we're not up to feature film length yet."
The clumsy ultimatums to the wife, "play the game right and we won't kill your husband," this kind of behavior on the part of the Nazis was well known long before Styron published Sophie's Choice, so much so that Styron was criticized for offering as his astonishing discovery what had been known for decades.
Finally, the discussion between the killers about "anti-matter" and "parallel universes" is a clear allusion to the brilliance of the German scientists which colludes with the scientific extermination strategies of the Nazis.
I was much more unnerved by the American version than by the German version. There was something foreign, incomprehensible about the torture of Tim Roth and Naomi Watts. This was because this is not an American story. Played by German actors in German, it makes much more sense and is therefore less frightening. We may have murdered a lot of native Americans, but we didn't build crematoria capable of killing 60,000 people in one day. That is a German achievement.
For sixty years German writers, filmmakers, poets have tried to come to terms with the Holocaust. This is a recent, brilliant effort at the same fruitless accommodation. It was monstrous, it was inhuman, and the Germans, one of the most civilized peoples in the world, did it. Their fathers did it. Their grandfathers did it. "Forgive us."
Watching the interview with Haneke, I was amazed that he didn't see it.
DVD Review: 3.5 stars out of 4
Summary: 5 Stars
The Bottom Line:
So many films decry violence while simultaneously revelling in it (e.g. The Condemned) that it's refreshing to see a film that honestly takes on the topic of cinematic bloodshed; couple that to the fact that it's one of the most clever movies I've ever seen and this is a movie you're unlikely to ever forget.
DVD Review: Stressful, suspenseful, brutal and intense!
Summary: 4 Stars
This film starts off feeling very realistic. The dialogue is down to earth, and the characters act like normal people. The movie exponentially escalates into a suspenseful, violent, and intense experience that will leave you with a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach.
Watch this if you enjoy the thriller/horror genre and want to see something TRULY original. (Though the film has been remade at least once, and more recent movies such as "The Strangers" have borrowed elements from it.)
DVD Review: The only shock here is this film's smothering self-righteousness.
Summary: 2 Stars
After watching Funny Games, I cannot comprehend the reasons for which people are upset and appalled. During my viewing, I kept hoping this movie would live up to its visceral reputation, but it was stuffy, stolid, and moved much too slow. I understand Haneke wants to manipulate the audience into feeling guilty as active participants in senseless torture, but with this film as the catalyst for such emotion? Really? Am I supposed to feel bad for these exceedingly pretentious people? The family is obnoxious--especially the impotent father and emotionally overwrought mother. I wanted them to suffer the second they began guessing opera singers and classical composers in their luxury vehicle. There were many opportunities where escape was possible, even easy, seeing as the captors were skinny, initially weaponless, prep school boys. Their entry into the home was even less comprehendible. Who the hell puts up with that from a complete stranger? I would have been too cheap to even give out my eggs, anyway. In all, I felt absolutely no sympathy for the family--and at least hoped their torture would be acerbic and compelling. Instead, I was subjected to the most genteel, accommodating, and BORING torture/murder ever. Their games could have been more inventive too. Far worse things could have happened to that family, and do happen to people every day in the news. The only shock is how self-righteous Michael Haneke is with this material. I'll admit it, I enjoy violence in cinema--but I don't feel bad about it, and the director's attempt to change that failed.DVD Review: Well-Made, but Sick
Summary: 2 Stars
It is hard to fathom the point of this twisted tale. Surely it can provide some entertainment for sadists, but beyond that? Is there supposed to be some point about outsiders taking out their bitterness on that lynchpin of a mainstream society, the typical nuclear family? Or is it simply a cinema verite tale of sadistic manipulation and violence? Or does the writer-director want to remind us of the persistence of evil, even in the happy domain of bourgeois people on summer vacation? This is a coldly presented, intelligently made horror film that wants to mess with your head and leave you feeling bad about things. The most interesting moment occurs toward the end, when Haneke literally hits the rewind button and denies the audience the satisfaction of seeing one of the psychos get what he deserves. Very clever - but still repulsive.
Description of Funny Games
It is impossible to have a neutral opinion about the Austrian thriller Funny Games--a movie so relentless in its ability to shock that it gained pariah status on the film festival circuit in 1997. In the warped tradition of A Clockwork Orange, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, and Blue Velvet, this is a film--directed with electrifying audacity by Munich-born Michael Haneke--that addresses the controversy of screen violence by making the viewer as guilty as the Leopold and Loeb-like killers who terrorize a young family of three during their summer vacation. They arrive as friendly neighbors, seducing the family with phony congeniality, but soon Funny Games reveals its devious strategy, turning savage and appalling... and completely captivating for those who can endure the terror. There's actually less violence than you'd see in a typical American horror flick such as Scream, but Haneke's forceful staging effectively fulfills his agenda of viewer complicity; we vividly experience this doomed family's fate and feel helpless to save them. So helpless, in fact, that Haneke dares to offer a hint of respite by giving a victim the upper hand, only to "replay" the same scene with the darkest of outcomes. Funny Games is guaranteed to outrage some viewers with its manipulative schemes, but there's no denying the film's visceral impact, generated by Haneke's expert handling of a superior cast. Don't even think of allowing anyone under age?17 to watch this film; all others should proceed with caution. --Jeff ShannonGeneral DVDs
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