Funny Games

Funny Games
by Michael Haneke

Funny Games

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DVD details

Actor: Arno Frisch, Frank Giering, Stefan Clapczynski, Susanne Lothar, Ulrich M?he
Director: Michael Haneke
Brand: Kino Video
Cinematographer: J?rgen J?rges
Writer: Michael Haneke
Editor: Andreas Prochaska
Producer: Veit Heiduschka
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: French (Original Language); German (Original Language), Unknown; Italian (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 108 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-05-16
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Kino Video

DVD Reviews of Funny Games

DVD Review: No Analysis, or Very Little-- an effective, very well acted burlesque.
Summary: 2 Stars

Food For Thought: a bad film flawlessly executed.

"Look at the trash you normally watch!"

"If it is a success, it will be due to a misunderstanding -especially in Anglophone countries [ . . . ] I'm a little afraid of that."

[ From the Director Interview in the extra features. This reviewer strongly recommends seeing the interview prior to watching the film itself. Charges of hypocrisy will likely be enough for many to drop it before seeing everything -which is a good thing, but this review will attempt to establish the film's worth beyond what at first appears to be self-conscious, smug and pedantic exploitation of the viewer with violence for its own sake. ]

Phrases from other reviews like "so well done it's almost boring", and "well done, but still disgusting" are very true. This film is more food for thought than violent, cringing thriller drama- that's because it's mostly over before it's even begun, and that's the point of it.

General Overview. (No spoilers)

The director places the audience into the same relation to *himself* as Paul and Peter do with the family to themselves. The film is a game in which, if you do not catch on to the rules quick enough, you are exploited. Playing along, maintaining the veneer of convention as a film goer and viewer is nigh impossible without willingly abstaining from adopting some critical stance to the film itself: choices are demanded, definite judgement on what the film is and does is required. There are problematic elements in the film's presentation itself: the antagonists (one of them at any rate) speaks directly to the camera, turning the audience into accomplices where they had only been voyeurs. -It's a deadly serious parody of the genre and industry, with little humor about it. The tremendous spiritual impotence -the pure intellectualism of the game made of violent stimulation of the subject through the abstraction of violence, the reduction of its tragic occurrence and presence in life and the world to abstracted images, *news*, is put on trial here. The mania and the impotence embodied by Peter and Paul's fulfilling the appetite for extreme stimulation via violence within the tediously formal and intellectual parameters of a mere 'game' is, perhaps, only surpassed in trivialization and moral turpitude by a public which readily adopts an equivalent position of these two maniacs -but as voyeurs, as masochists and consumers of titillating trash, -perhaps as mere contrast to boredom, and in escape of it.

Analysis, Review. (*Spoiler Alert* Some Plot Specifics Disclosed)

Peter and Paul adhere rigorously to formal conventions of social discourse- so what director Michael Haneke states about the incredible danger presented by someone not receptive to their usage while employing them against you is doubly terrorizing to the family who is having their rights subjugated to the homicidal game initiated by the sociopathic (and nearly comical, at times cartoonish) duo in the film.

P&P create room for maneuver by posing themselves as harmless near idiots and brats to the effect of being treated with indulgent disregard, allowing for their weakness (which is actually a foil for their obsessive desire for power over them) --had Anna and Georg not been bamboozled by this and treated them for what they were *as they appeared*, the game would have ended right there. Failing to assert their rights, P&P establish momentum against them that they find as irresistible in direct proportion to the Family's impotence in the face of their apparent childishness and merely bumbling insouciance on the part of Peter, and of slick but harmless wit and articulation on the part of the waifish Paul. The result is the torture and death of the Family and the releasing of the evil two for another round of deathly child's play across the lake --for friends of the family who visited early on in this funny game's development in the film. (This, bearing in mind the awkwardness of their neighbors in the beginning and the emptiness of the house when young Georg seeks refuge next door, gives us reason to believe that P&P were finishing up yet another game before they began the one focused on in the film.)

The appropriate reaction to the suspicious, presumptuous and irritating pretension masqueraded by P&P as polite, but nascent immaturity is not forthcoming from the WIfe Anna or the Husband Georg. The intension of reconnaissance in Peter's actions when he appears to ask for eggs are thinly veiled, and simple social awkwardness is insufficient to account for his pressing his egg-request again and again -to the irritation of the Wife; Peter's slavish and clumsy manners are indicative of a liar as much as that of an oaf, and she fails to take appropriate measures to ensure her privacy. His second appearance (for the last of the four eggs he took obsequious pains to observe in the kitchen, specifically the fact of the "dozen" in the cart of which only 8 he had wasted) is occasioned by the ridiculous excuse that the dog had spooked them out of his hands. and is joined by Peter (earlier introduced by the neighbor as a son of a work colleague) who 'cheekily' requests to test a driver in her Husband's golf bag which he admires with articulate envy. In each case, Anna fails both to fully catch on to their suspect behavior and to engage them on their own terms, forcefully utilizing the antithesis of their slavish politeness and placing them formally in the wrong which they do in fact acknowledge.

In Summary:

The 'self-reflexivity' incorporated by the writer/director is essential, if irritating and hackneyed in-itself as a device, and alters this film from what would be yet another genre piece into something more substantial -and terrorizing. Without it, it is merely another film within that genre, well acted. With it, it is a bad film made worse, and probably necessary to bring about the consciousness of the real evil, real mediocrity of that type of media on the whole. It is also that much more terrorizing, since the exploitation of the viewer is taken de re, as a beginning, and manipulated into a conscious farce which makes the viewer an accomplice to itself; and it is also, by that very fact enraging -since this film is in-itself an extreme burlesque.

For one who gets caught in this act by the film, the events become that much more sickening and cause for rage. Others who find the violence distasteful will say "what for?" and walk away from it --this film lacks the kind of humor that could make this a mere parody, instead of grotesque burlesque indulging in the worst aspects of an already perverse genre and social trend. The problematic codependent situation the film anticipates for the viewer watching this, as one complicit to the violence for its own sake in which you are *invited* to come along forces the adoption of a definite judgement on and stance towards the film:

A "No" that judges the film as an independent creative object with a didactic function, made to entrap the uncritical viewer but afford insight to anyone willing to approach it from without, en par with its creator, not participating in its solipsistic trance of violence. Or a "No" which judges it as necessarily the most extreme embodiment of what it damns -perhaps its ultimate possible achievement- participating in it regardless, thus worthy of greater contempt for indulging in an evil whilst moralizing against it.

The director conveys that this is ideally an un-watchable film, that one walks out of (and on) after Paul's wink at the camera, or at the rewinding scene and any self-reflexive motion to the viewer prior and up to it. In actuality, it is an un-viewable documentation of violence save the inclusion of these clear signs and narrative devices that indicate in each instance "this is just a film", fictionalizing it. Everything else belonging to the genre that does not do this is little more than a fictitious documentary of violent events that almost never involve the moral dilemmas in the elements of their plot to justify their existence beyond just revenge, or turning a profit. The former "No" is predicated upon the latter, anger at having been fooled is insufficient to appreciate the film; --and since we in the West generally do not live in culture, cultures that do not produce trash of the kind this film represents to us in an intelligent, pointed way, we cannot afford to toss this out with the rest of it quite yet. That films of this nature are made at all is encouraging, and perhaps gives hope for conditions free of this influence in the future.

____ ____ ____

Director: Michae Haneke

Anna. (Susanne Lothar; The Piano Teacher)
Georg. (Ulrich M?uhe; Benny's Video, The Lives of Others)
Paul (Arno Frisch; Benny's Video)
Peter (Frank Giering)

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.

Description of Funny Games

Studio: Kino International Release Date: 03/11/2008 Run time: 104 minutes

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 Shannon

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