Funny Games

I feel very similar about Funny Games than what I felt after watching The Strangers. Appalled and disturbed. However, Funny Games (as said by the director) seems to be a commentary on violence in media/movies, and not just violence in movies to have violence. Either way, it's certainly difficult to not feel sick to your stomach after witnessing the crimes against the family in Funny Games, but I do appreciate some of the obstacles Michael Haneke takes instead of going through with the many cliches that plague the modern day horror. But I guess we're all left asking the same question...what was the point?

6.8/10

When I heard Michael Haneke was re-making Funny Games in America I wondered why: what purpose could it possibly serve? The set-up to both versions is simple in that a bourgeois family is subjected to a torturous ordeal by a couple of ever so polite psychopaths. Moreover, like the original the re-make is a cruel exercise in exposing our fascination with the violence depicted in the media - the "our" specifically meaning the middle classes, comfortable in our existences and oblivious to the horrors of the world.

However, Haneke is on record as saying that he always considered Funny Games to be an "American story", as he regarded the use of violence as a form of entertainment to be a specifically American phenomenon. No matter that this is a bit of a flawed viewpoint: having the aggressors seem straight out of the O.C. gives the impact of their sadistic actions an even more discomfiting air. Michael Pitt (charismatic and barbarous) and Brady Corbett (seemingly dopey but utterly vicious) are both excellent, but their performances leave one feeling a bit um "seen it all before".

Which takes me back to my first thought: what is the point? Cosmetics aside this is exactly the same film, right down to the assumption that the well to do like to listen to classical music and that the audience may be unsettled by playing them some thrash metal. Haneke even has Pitt address the camera and manipulate the film, so re-using the trick about playing with reality and focusing the viewer on what actually counts as real. It is just that this playing around does not carry the impact it did 10 years ago.

In fact, due to the unconventional nature of the film and the vast disparity it offers with reality it's hard to care much at all. Yes what happens is horrible, but it does not feel at all real. I'm waiting for someone to point out that, that is Haneke's point, but frankly, I don't care. No amount of intellectualising can make this watchable.

You would think Haneke would know better too. His most recent film Hidden took a genre film and flipped it about to deliver one of the most surprising and intellectually challenging thrillers of the decade. By stringing the audience along and offering some sense of catharsis and understanding of character motivation he offered a way in. Funny Games U.S. offers no such intrigue or tension and is ultimately a big step backward. He may see it as an American story, but it worked better as a small Austrian film, set in anywheres-ville Europe.

I haven't seen Haneke's 1997 version of this film otherwise I sure would have avoided this one since, as has been said, it's a scene by scene copy. Basically, 'Funny Games U.S.' is pointless trash. I noticed many people liked it because it was different from the usual Hollywood flick. Well I'd advise them to look beyond Hollywood and they'll find plenty of movies that are different and GOOD. Why opt for something crappy just because you want something else? Others seem to find layers in the film that to me were non-existent. 'Funny Games U.S.' is pretentious garbage and the ONLY good things about it are Naomi Watts and child actor Devon Gearhart. Both deliver very natural performances and are the only people you care about on screen. Watts's name was the main thing that convinced me to watch this. Incredibly gifted actress that she is, I liked every single one of her films that I saw until now. What made her choose this film? Anyway, 'Funny Games U.S.' is a pure waste of time.

Watching "Funny Games" is a bit like coming across a major accident on the highway - you know you should continue driving on past the scene, but you just can't keep yourself from slowing down and gawking at all the wreckage.

The premise of the story does not sound very promising at first, as the idea, or a simple variation of it, has served as the foundation for countless such films in the past: an innocent family of three is held hostage in their home by a couple of sadistic killers who systematically abuse and terrorize their victims for their own twisted pleasure.

So many horror movies are predictable and formulaic that it's a pleasant surprise to come across one that actually makes an effort to break free of its bonds and make its own way in the world. And, indeed, "Funny Games" busts through the horror movie conventions with an almost ruthless determination. In this Americanized version of a film he made in his native Austria in 1997, director Michael Haneke scrupulously avoids obvious camera setups and editing techniques, bypassing virtually every storytelling, visual or audio cliché endemic to the genre. There is no background music, for instance, to cue us into the scary moments, no screeching cats jumping out of the shadows, and no point-of-view shots designed to generate easy suspense. Unlike in most films of this type, the violence here happens in an entirely haphazard and random manner, making it all the more frightening in its unpredictability and plausibility. Haneke refuses to cater to the expectations of his audience, making them face the reality of the nightmare he's showing them rather than giving them what it is they may want to see.

Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet are cringe-worthy and terminally creepy as the smarmy psychopaths who get their jollies out of watching other people suffer, while Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Devon Gearhart engage our full sympathy as the hapless victims who have come up against the blank wall of two twisted minds they are woefully unequipped to even understand, let alone wage battle against.

This is one of the most memorable and artful horror films of recent times, but it is also one of the most unnerving and difficult to watch. The movie gets into your bones, no matter how much your better angels may be telling you to keep it out. It's depressing and disturbing and is certainly not intended for all audiences, but it is a movie that it is very difficult to shake off once you've given yourself over to it.

I saw this at the London Film Festival and found it to be exactly what I expected: an English-language facsimile by Michael Haneke of his 1997 German film of the same title. Not that this is a bad thing. It is a testament to Haneke's artistic ability to replicate perfectly his previous film shot-by-shot with equal effect, tension, and intrigue even as one knows what to expect--although it might also say something about Haneke's ego that he doesn't feel that he needed to change or add new material for audiences who've already seen the original. The performances are overall well-executed, especially by Naomi Watts, an actress who has proved that she will still take risks despite the fact that she has made it both in the art-house scene and in mainstream Hollywood.

Haneke wanted to replicate the original film for American audiences since he has considered the story closer culturally to American society. That is a noble effort, but I am not sure if it required him to remake an exact replica of one of his earlier works, nor am I sure that it will have quite the impact he wants since the American audiences he is targeting might avoid it all together (as it might be seen as too art-house or extreme) or be completely turned off by its content and artistic approach. Nonetheless, it is interesting to witness as an exercise in a film artist revisiting his earlier work, even if he didn't bother changing anything.