Funny Games

Released:  March 11^th, 1998

Rated:  Unrated

Distributor:  Attitude Films

Starring:  Susanne Lothar, Ulrich Mühe, Arno Frisch, Frank Giering, Stefan Clapczynski

Directed by:  Michael Haneke

Written by:  Michael Haneke

Personal Bias Alert:  vaguely knew the plot going in, aware of Haneke’s reputation for difficult films

7.2 of 10

            A film comes along every year or so that questions the amount of violence in movies.  The money flow indicates that audiences may have too healthy an appetite for bloodlust, to the point that we could reasonably be seen as the grossly overweight humans from Wall-E covered in blood splatter.  The question of why, and the more fraught question of why we enjoy it, shouldn’t be ignored, no matter how uncomfortable they make you feel.  A single film probably can’t cover all the answers, but few make you look as long or as hard at your own answers as Michael Haneke’s Funny Games.

            Haneke chose a tried and true formula for making his audience uncomfortable:  make it over-the-top and make it real.  Our desensitization is to cartoon violence, the kind where someone can get bloodlessly pummeled but still stand back up for another round.  Funny Games makes each blow count, and the progressively pained, haggard appearance of the well-to-do family being tortured is startling.  The punch of any film that pushes the boundaries like this will inevitably soften over time as others push it further (in this case Lars von Trier and Gaspar Noé come to mind), but the looks on the parent’s faces, particularly on the wife played by Susanne Lothar, remains unnerving.  If Haneke was trying to make his audience uncomfortable, then he certainly succeeded, and the film has enough bite to keep people squirming for decades to come.

            The tortured family is straight out of idyllic 1950s America:  a mom, a dad, a son, and a dog.  An ill-fated trip to the family lake house is their undoing, as they come across a pair of young men who slip inside and force them to play a series of sadistic ‘games.’  They’re more interested in playing with the family that straight-up murdering them, hence the title, and the cold calculation of their moves makes for a tense thriller.  The complication is that one of the boys, Paul (Arno Frisch), periodically addresses the audience to shock us out of the pleasurably familiar genre flow.  These conspiratorial winks and nods are what force you to take a step back and wonder why the hell you’re enjoying yourself.  The family are clearly the victims, but you’re experiencing the film in the same way that the boys are experiencing it:  perched on a couch with the smugness of someone who chose to be present.  What does that say about our knee-jerk conclusions about the boys, ourselves, and our notions of evil? 

            There are other ways that Haneke toys with our experience, but not all work as well.  An overlong scene in the back half of the movie grinds the tension to a halt and doesn’t add much (perhaps, as Paul later remarks, it was just to get to a feature-length runtime).  The music choices, though, were the biggest drawback.  They are jarring in a completely unnecessary way, jerking you out of the flow of the film far too quickly.  There’s already plenty of reminders that we’re watching a movie, but most operate in a quiet, clean way that encourages contemplation, while the wrenching of the music engenders nothing but a feeling of nervous fear.

            Still, you get the sense that every tiny move Haneke made was purposeful, and most of them work towards his main point.  The boys, who are both in the awkward stage just before manhood, are the precise demographic that Hollywood targets for its most violent films.  And yet, the violence occurs almost exclusively off screen, with the boys’ games and their stagings so neatly laid out that you sense the crux of Haneke’s point lying somewhere behind that map.  The point you come up with will undoubtedly be different than my own, but what’s clear is that Haneke went into Funny Games with a purpose that was relentlessly executed.

Other Notes:

Ø  The true climax of the film is one last nod to the audience, a final reminder that we chose to sit through these events when we could’ve left at any time.

Ø  What is up with the cast dying?  Three of the main actors are now dead, aged 54, 51, and 38.

Ø  This original version is in German.  Haneke made a shot-for-shot remake in English in 2007, which I haven’t seen.