Funny Games
Michael Haneke has a peculiar knack of unsettling his viewers. The controversial German director isn’t content with his audience sitting passively in the dark wiling away a couple of hours munching on popcorn. His films are challenging and pack a punch.
His latest release, Funny Games, is a remake of a film he made in Germany in 1997, and revolves around an upper-middle class couple and their son, whom we first encounter in transit, having set off for what they expect to be, a regular holiday in their house by a lake.
An overhead shot shows their four-wheel drive (S.U.V.) sailing down a beautiful country road beneath the autumnual trees. On the drive to their holiday destination, the couple are listening to operatic arias, playing a game in whic one person selects an aria from a cd, and the other has to guess what it is. The son looks on from the back seat, smiling along at his parents’quaint pastime. Seated next to him, is the family dog, looking similarly content. All rather idyllic.
But not for long. The beautiful music is brought to a jolting halt as a jarring, incoherent heavy metal piece starts blaring and the blood-red opening titles start to roll. You just know this isn’t going to be easy.
Shortly after they arrive at their destination, they are visited by a boy who is running an errand for another family staying by the lake. There’s no option but to assist him, as all the families who holiday in the area have been going there for years, and know each other. It’s all very civilised. The boy is soon joined by a companion, and things start to become strained before spinning horrifically out of control.
As if watching what happens to this family is not bad enough, Haneke makes the audience complicit by getting one of the malevolent boys to do to-camera pieces. It’s quite clever, and extremely unsettling.
Haneke teases out each thread in the concept of a game, right down to the two menacing boys being dressed as if they are about to go and play tennis. It’s a frighteining film, and scary films are supposed to be fun, right? And games are supposed to be fun, too. Haneke delights in subverting our expectations by plunging the audience into a hellish nightmare, from which there appears to be no escape. In that regard, we are like the captives in the film. On neither side, can the audience feel victorious. Perhaps there is little joy in winning a game, after all. In the game of life, it’s impossible to back a winner.
Haneke’s disturbing and violent film forces the viewer to be complicit in a relentlessly violent and irredemable situation. This film raises sufficient questions to have you and prospective dinner guests engaged for years to come.
People who have already seen the film, may wonder what use, if any, there is in seeing the remake, especially given that the remake is pretty much a replica of the original. The truth is, this film is far more confronting when being watched in a cinema and when the viewer’s gaze isn’t diverted by subtitles. Whether the film succeeded in hitting its mark with American audiences as intended in Haneke’s polemic about cinematic violence, is another matter.
But that doesn’t make this film any less interesting to see.