Movie Review: Funny Games (2008)

So your average, white bread, upper class family takes a trip up to their secluded vacation house for a little summer getaway, hoping to get in a golf game with the neighbors and do a little light sailing on the lake out by the house. While the father, George (Tim Roth), and the son, "Georgie" (David Gearhart), are out working with the boat, the mother, Anne (Naomi Watts), stays in the kitchen preparing food for dinner. Suddenly, her son comes in to tell her something: there's someone at the door. There she finds the immaculately dressed, albeit somewhat socially awkward, Peter, who is later accompanied by his friend Paul (played by Brady Corbet and Michael Pitt respectively). After a brief altercation, the two boys take the family hostage, and tell them they want to play a game. They make a bet that before nine o'clock the next day, all three of the family members will be dead.

Think you know how this story ends? Yeah. So did I. And I was certainly disappointed, though not necessarily in a bad way.

The "abduct and torture" plot is a fairly common concept nowadays. The Saw and Hostel movie franchises have gained renown as a result of their extreme brutality, as the slew of forgettable copycat films since released would imply.Michael Haneke's Funny Games, an Austrian film released in 1997,was intended as a criticism of that sub-genre, and what he saw as an American obsession with exploitative violence. The first thing the viewer might notice is that Funny Games (2008) is actually a shot-by-shot, almost line-by-line remake of the original film. In fact, the only real difference is the more familiar, English-speaking actors. This is because the American version's purpose isn't really to bring something new to the film as much as it is to make the film more accessible to Haneke's target audience, the average American horror movie fan, by refilming in an American setting with English-speaking actors.

And indeed, Haneke does a good job of attracting his unsuspecting viewers. The trailer, with its eerie classical music score and chilling visuals, makes a certain promise that the film ignores altogether. For the most part, very little of the violence is actually seen. Generally the worst of it happens offscreen, and at one point-in a particularly teasing maneuver-the camera follows one of the main antagonists away from the main action of the scene entirely as he wanders out of the room, the sounds of yelling and struggling just off in the distance, only returning long after the fight is over. The movie does have more than its fair share of suspense and tension, and that in itself brings the primary element of terror to the film. But really, it's just a way of raising your anticipation before completely smashing your expectation of seeing some resolution to that suspense, which we never get quite in the way that we want.

If Haneke's point wasn't clear enough from this, it's made even moreso in the narrative. One interesting twist in this film is that the antagonists actually break the fourth wall on numerous occasions, and not just in the "look into the camera and smirk evilly" clich�d final shot from a number of movies (though that does happen too), they actually speak to the audience, saying things like, "You're rooting for them, aren't you?" They mock the audience in their position of voyeurism, and we're forced to confront the fact that we're not truly rooting for George, Anne, and their son. We will be satisfied with their eventual escape, but until then, we only want them to put on a good show. Haneke is aware of this, and uses it to frustrate and annoy the viewer. Those of you who have seen other reviews of the film are probably aware of the now-infamous "rewind scene." Anne, in a moment that leaves the viewer cheering, grabs the shotgun in front of her and shoots one of the antagonists. The other digs the television remote out from the couch cushion and rewinds the action far back enough to snatch the gun out of her hand before she can have her moment of heroism. It's late enough in the film that we can allow the victims to have a release from their torture in that traditional "fighting back" moment, and it not only is denied to us, it is flat out cheated away from us. Haneke is well aware of the conventions of the horror movie genre, and removes them from his film completely, with seemingly no rhyme or reason as to why.

Chances are that whoever you are, you're not going to come away from Funny Games even remotely satisfied. It's one of those movies you're either going to love or hate, and even if you love it, chances are you aren't going to enjoy the film, at least not completely. What we have here is a distinction between what is "good" and what is "pleasant." I don't mean this in the traditional sense of "pleasantness" (because really, how can a film where a family gets tortured for an hour and a half be anything close to pleasant?), I mean pleasantness in the sense that our expectations overall are met, or if they aren't, there is at least a relatively good reason why. Funny Games is unpleasant for us as an audience because it builds up all of our expectations of the horror genre and then goes out of its way not to meet each and every one of them, and uses the audience's disappointment as proof of the film's main point. Of course, just because a movie has a purpose doesn't mean it's good, and you very well may find this film to be too pretentious and reactionary for your tastes. And really, you'd be perfectly justified in saying so. Haneke can definitely be accused of being far too heavy-handed and condescending in his political statement, and this will definitely affect any message the viewer takes from the film. But it is a very disturbing film, not the most disturbing by far, but still has a certain way of getting into the viewer's head, and at the very least it will make you think, whether you ultimately love the film or hate it.