2008 Woodie Awards
'Funny Games' not all fun and games
Bruce Shields/Guest Columnist
Issue date: 3/27/08 Section: After Hours
I have never experienced anything like Funny Games.
Funny Games is a shot-for-shot remake of the Austrian film, also directed by Michael Haneke. It begins with a moderately affluent family driving to it's vacation home, boat in tow. To pass time, they play a game of alternating CDs and guessing who composed what song. Is it Björling, Tebaldi, Gigli? It doesn't matter. Director Michael Haneke isn't interested in road games.
At home, the family's normal activities are interrupted when two white-clad young men introduce themselves. They propose a bet to the family that in 12 hours they will each be dead. This is another sort of game. But the outcome of these boys' game is inevitable.
It's directed by a script and production crew and the audience will be reminded of this throughout the film. After proposing the bet, Paul, played by Michael Pitt, turns his head to the camera and tells the audience that he bets we are on the family's side. Of course we are. This is how the conventions of plot work. We a with the helpless.
But something disturbing happens in the process of watching this film.
Though each incident of torture and violence inflicted on the family is portrayed off-screen, the camera lingers on the aftermath until it becomes uncomfortable.
Perhaps this is because of the third game, the game Haneke is playing with the audience. Haneke knows how the audience will react to his film. At one point Paul turns to the audience and asks if they expect a full-length movie with plausible plot developments. But knowing the conventions of plot and the expectations from the audience does not guarantee that the movie will adhere to them. Why would it? This is a fixed game.
The film strives to blur the line between fiction and reality. The characters of Paul and his crony Peter aren't characters but plot devices, constructs, ideas given human faces.
The family's suffering becomes so extreme that the audience can not help but transplant themselves into the film and feel the suffering themselves.
Funny Games is a shot-for-shot remake of the Austrian film, also directed by Michael Haneke. It begins with a moderately affluent family driving to it's vacation home, boat in tow. To pass time, they play a game of alternating CDs and guessing who composed what song. Is it Björling, Tebaldi, Gigli? It doesn't matter. Director Michael Haneke isn't interested in road games.
At home, the family's normal activities are interrupted when two white-clad young men introduce themselves. They propose a bet to the family that in 12 hours they will each be dead. This is another sort of game. But the outcome of these boys' game is inevitable.
It's directed by a script and production crew and the audience will be reminded of this throughout the film. After proposing the bet, Paul, played by Michael Pitt, turns his head to the camera and tells the audience that he bets we are on the family's side. Of course we are. This is how the conventions of plot work. We a with the helpless.
But something disturbing happens in the process of watching this film.
Though each incident of torture and violence inflicted on the family is portrayed off-screen, the camera lingers on the aftermath until it becomes uncomfortable.
Perhaps this is because of the third game, the game Haneke is playing with the audience. Haneke knows how the audience will react to his film. At one point Paul turns to the audience and asks if they expect a full-length movie with plausible plot developments. But knowing the conventions of plot and the expectations from the audience does not guarantee that the movie will adhere to them. Why would it? This is a fixed game.
The film strives to blur the line between fiction and reality. The characters of Paul and his crony Peter aren't characters but plot devices, constructs, ideas given human faces.
The family's suffering becomes so extreme that the audience can not help but transplant themselves into the film and feel the suffering themselves.
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