Funny Games
Directed by Michael Haneke
Warner Independent, 2008
By Jess Skinner
Michael Haneke’s Funny Games is a perverse thesis, a test with goals, and an experiment. All those, but not quite a traditional movie as the average viewer would recognize. Its surface is as abrasive as steel wool, with a core that is dark as night. Not since Godard took us on a Week End (‘67) of car crashes and cannibalism has a respected European auteur sought to give his audience such a forceful push towards the theatre exit. No self-respecting member of polite society would enjoy watching this picture in the traditional sense. If you’re looking for a good time, stay away.
That being said, I believe there is intrinsic value in such alienating displays. Haneke is a cinematic miscreant, but he has no interest in making violence seem satisfying. Here, it is real and hideous and alive. He has copied from his original Austrian film of the same name (circa 1997) almost beat-for-beat, so he obviously has faith in this obscene material — and maybe we need it now more then ever.
Ann (Naomi Watts) and George (Tim Roth) are an affluent, witless couple with an equally uninteresting child, George Jr. (Devon Gearhart). They arrive at their summer home for a vacation of golf, sailing, and I would imagine, blank-stare contests, until they are interrupted by Paul and Peter (Michael Pitt and Bradey Corbet). Dressed in pale shorts, tennis shirts, and gloves, the young men go from polite to intrusive to violent without missing a step. Eventually, the family is trapped at the mercy of their hostility. The unwelcome duo’s sadistic plan (whatever it may turn out to be) cannot fail, you see, because Paul knows he is in a movie, and thus is able to manipulate time and space to suit his whims. He also likes to talk to the audience, and we are indirectly asked to wager on the fate of the characters.
The game is more against the audience than the family. As we are real and they are not — which Paul would seem to acknowledge — we are the direct victims of his violence. The sacrifice is our empathy, and our expectations, which are continuously subverted. Paul knows what the audience wants, namely to see someone get out alive, and he consciously and consistently takes that away from us. If Funny Games was just a horror film where the villain wins (as many critics have postulated), then it would be asinine shock-theatrics, a domestic Grand Guignol show. However, the choice to give Paul an eye through the fourth wall reiterates the falseness of it all, numbing the shock (a touch) and making — what do the theorists call it? Oh, yeah — a point. This is how violence feels, kids, and it is nothing to scoff at. I could feel Funny Games viciously poking my soul.
What fails to impress me is critical opinion that praises slick, digestible violence (which found an apex in the Tarantino years), but derides having to sit through something that really gnaws at you. Of course, Funny Games is borderline unwatchable — that is what the material demands, and an accurate representation of what victims of violence truly experience. It is tailor-made for the desensitized, the apathetic. A desire to make us feel like decent, moral humans again is its purpose.
Haneke is conscious of genre clichés like cheap suspense, plot twists, and predictably sympathetic outcomes. He takes them apart casually — the biggest shock of all in the story is finding out who bites the dust first. Again, despite the title, there is no attempt to make this game a fun one — though almost all of the violence and nudity is off-screen, so even people seeking exploitation will likely be disappointed.
How does this academic thriller hold up in technical terms? In overall quality, I would recommend going with the original Austrian version — although “recommend” is an inaccurate term. I wouldn’t really ask anyone to see this unless they already knew what to expect, of course. The acting here is weaker than it was previously — Pitt, Watts, and Roth are good, but pale in contrast to the originators of their roles. I suppose not being able to tell if the couple was intentionally meant to seem charmless and moronic could have been another twisted trick at the hands of Haneke, who — if nothing else — is modern cinema’s master of provocation.
You’ve been warned.
