Its not like we didn’t try to mentally prepare ourselves.
We went in a group of three (I sat in the middle because I am the most fragile one, or so they told me).
We bought wine to drink during it (thank you E street!)
And packed big scarves to pull over our heads in moments of need.
And still, we weren’t quite ready.
Actually, we weren’t ready at all.
But I guess, that is the whole point.
For the uninitiated, “Funny Games” is Michael Haneke’s remake of his very own 1997 classic of the soul-destroying genre.
The original (along with other Haneke gems of audience reaction manipulation such as “Cache”, “The Piano Teacher” and “The Time of The Wolf”) is the kind of movie people LOVE telling you they saw
(see examples here and here).
As in-they LOVE telling you they survived it.
The story is as bare and bones as fear itself.
Ann (Naomi Watts), George (Tim Roth) and their well adjusted, young son Georgie (Devon Gearhart) arrive to their pretty beach house, with their pretty boat and plan on having one of those weekends you own beach houses for:
Sailing, golfing, a lot of grilling and some socializing.
Nice, huh?
Well, you know from second one they’re doomed.
The next door neighbors (who appear somewhat catatonic and odd, but in these kind of circles, you don’t ask questions) seem to have some young guests and when Brady Corbett and Michael Pitt (I will quote Haley here: creepiest looking actor alive, who is still somehow oddly attractive) arrive, in preppy white, and wearing gloves to borrow some eggs, they let them in.
Big mistake.
They won’t leave.
They won’t leave for reason’s unknown and their quiet menace is almost more unsettling than all that follows.
And what follows is a series of games, they appear to enjoy playing
(“why don’t you just kill us?”-asks Anne,
“you cannot underestimate the importance of entertainment”-says Brady)
while slowly but surely stripping the Farbert’s of their pride and desire to live.
It is all PURE mental torture porn.
The 4th wall gets broken, there is actually very little actual violence on screen (Tim Roth has been tortured in a chair much more gruesomely and bloodily than this, remember “Reservoir dogs”?) and all the while, you’re sitting upright and thinking:
“Why am I watching this? Why don’t I just leave?”
But you don’t leave.
You’re part of the game.
The importance of entertainment is too big for you to leave
And that’s the whole point Haneke is putting across, who unlike some of the other masters of audience reaction manipulation (see: Kubrick in “Clockwork Orange”, or Hitchcock in most things) is just a little bit more of a sadist.
He actually wants YOU to feel bad.
God forbid you enjoy this (and if you do, then well, something is probably really wrong with you) and if you get dissentesized towards the end (you might, as it does take a little turn into the absurd) well, that is a cross for you, and your horrible, bourgeois, vapid (and in this case, very specifically American) society to take.
Watch at your own (mental) peril.
God loves a cheerful giver.
I saw the original Funny Games on DVD not that long ago. There's an interview some with Haneke on the DVD and he actually says that he never intended people to stay in the theater and watch the entire film. He doesn't understand why people would do that. It's a film that demands you get up and leave.
point proven
I saw the original a few months ago (before I even knew they were making a remake). Am I the only one that thinks it's boring, slow, and pointless?
I think that's the reaction Haneke wants you to have. Not only is it an excruciating slow burn, but the whole mood is off-center (notice the juxtaposition of the classic music over the death metal in the opening). It's constructed in a such a way to make the audience feel uncomfortable and put off where by the beginning of the second act the viewer starts demanding violence, because we are familiar with what violence is and know how we should react to it. That's Haneke's goal. He wants us to scream for blood, then realize what we're doing and become disgusted with ourselves.
I saw the preview and wanted to see it immediately.
And I love Michael Pitt.
He embodies the fantasy of the the devil dressed as an angel...
Beautiful, cherub-like, soft and innocent...
but you know when that bedroom door closes
he's gonna fuck you in unimaginable ways
and there will be some crying
and there will be some pain...
nonetheless
you're gonna want to do it again and again and again.
(oops - double post - ignore the first, love the second. mwah.)
Emily,
I miss you.
see the original here
(it's the exact same movie, shot for shot...)
I randomly saw the original late one night while staying with my parents. I thought, for all the reasons mentioned above, it was an awesome (using the real definition here...) film. I am always wary of remakes. How does this one stack up?
If you head over to Jim Emerson's Scannersblog there's a very heated debate going on about this movie. A majority of the readers/commenters hated the movie but it seems that (like here) the movie has its fans. Critics overwhelmingly pissed all over it but I think audiences have been a little more forgiving.
It seems that many people are more upset at the comments that Haneke has made or his purported thesis than the film itself.
It took me a few days to realize that I liked it. Mainly, I was just trying to figure out if the reasoning behind the vitriolic response was anything more than a knee-jerk reaction. What's also funny to me is that this is a movie that transcends "thumbs up" or "thumbs down." So the negative reviews by critics almost seem to be a validation of Haneke's goals. I think. I don't know, I'm probably actually going to force myself to sit through this one more time. Does that make me a sadist or masochist? I don't know. I just dig thought-provoking movies.
[Interesting sidenote: I generally detest David Lynch's movies but I'm enough of a cinephile that I found myself reading 'Lynch on Lynch' last year while self-exiled in Baltimore. Anyway, one day I was at Golden West and one of the waitresses saw me reading that and recommended Michael Haneke. I don't really see the connection as I find the Haneke films I've seen far more rewarding than anything the revered Lynch has done.]
Also Denman, I don't really think it's a matter of comparing this one to the original. It's like that line in "Kill Bill vol. 2" when Budd was talking to Elle about the Bride's Hattori Hanzo sword. To paraphrase he said one doesn't compare a Hanzo sword to another Hanzo sword, you compare to any other sword that wasn't made by Hattori Hanzo.
Don't compare "Funny Games US" to the original, you compare it to "Saw" or "Hostel" if you want because those are the films (and the audience that supports them) that Haneke is targeting. Well, it's a little bit more than that but you get my drift.