Title: Mat i Syn
Release Date: 1997
Director: Aleksandr Sokurov
Words will do no justice. Vibrant oil paintings of life, distant and fleeting, momentary glimpses of aesthetic exhileration. The brief climatic sequences of death; a humble, caring son torn and distraught in grief over the inevitable death of his mother. A dreary, melancholic adventure, almost dream-like, unreal in moments and completely humanistic in others. Essential.
92%
The night is a time of grief, a time of uninhabited and awe-inspiring darkness. Anguish and sorrow gush out around the edges of the night, dance around the darkness like children on a playground. Apathy is nonexistent yet omnipresent; rain and wind roam freely beyond the bustle of banalities. Pipes drip without recognition or care. Cars pass without passengers or drivers. Umbrellas and paper float peculiarly in the wind. Stranded individuals glide upon the rain drenched sidewalks, never glancing at one another, never receiving or rewarding acknowledgement. The night is a breathing entity that consumes; without prejudice, without thought. Vacuum is an eloquent ode to the night, complementing its resilient and unforgiving complexion. Resounding and renovating as it bounds melodies and sorrow to feverish rhythms and despondent vocals, grand hall piano interludes and sensual overtures riddle the album like calculated bullet holes.
Vacuum is an eclectic album, consisting of many different sounds and venues that the melodies pay homage to. Predominantly, the album is driven by remorse and melancholy, but a lingering sense of permutation tinges the atmosphere throughout its entirety. Vacuum is heavily inspired by the bleak yet endearing sounds of classical tunes, a minimalistic symphony for the desolate, morose individuals that berate existence. Scattered throughout the album are piano interludes and classical instrumentation, both being utilized quite well, but not without their depreciation. The opening track trembles in like a record, instantaneously sweeping us away with a string and piano-laden melody, yet just as quickly transitioning into the shrieking hate-filled fields of depressive black metal. The black metal fragments of the album are just as the listener would expect. Higher pitched vocals and resilient, overbearingly toxic riffs that ricochet off one another, bounce around the album sporadically and systematically, almost unnaturally. The atmospheric segments that these bits collide with seem to be superficial paradigms, like sidewalk chalk in the rain they stand individual without support, yet when the rains begin to fall their value swiftly fades away. It almost feels contrived the way some of it is incorporated. It doesn’t seem to enhance the musical quality or the listeners tone, simply another unnoticed extra in some obscure foreign film.
The one stand out track that really irritated me, and ultimately brought about a change in thought, was Coup De Bleus. I found it be the one track that really deprived me of understanding the entirety of the album. Depressive black metal is an extremely variable genre subject to instantaneous and sweeping changes, like street lights from red to green it can change on a dime. But in doing so, you put at risk the listeners overall textual feel of the album. You risk removing them from the world and atmosphere you’ve so meticulously crafted, and quite possibly ruining the entire experience. The opening three tracks of Vacuum are fantastic epitaphs of depressive black metal; layered and atmospheric, treacherous and dreary. The instinctive flow of classical tunes and black metal riots clash and embrace in a soaring vacuum of isolation. And then Coup De Bleus begins, and you begin to wonder if you haven’t been transported back to the 1930s, sitting in a gloomy cafe with intellects and men in suits. The track has a heavy blues feel to it, almost optimistic and hopeful, like I want to order another coffee and snap my fingers along. The track does pick back up into the depressive black metal arena, and it almost really does feel like a brand new song, but in that it loses its scope. It’s too fragmented and impatient with itself, losing its direction too many times in a song removes the listener completely. Other than this one stand out track, the rest of the songs feel at rest. They tend to caress one another like Mozart or Beethoven would, certain distinct melodies appear to dance about in other tracks, making the entire album feel as though it is one instead of multiple.
Pensees Nocturnes’s debut album is one of many ideas, each taking two steps forward and one step backwards. The classical bits are very well done, incorporated unconventionally into the music as stagnant bits of emotion, breathing deeply and exhaling throughout. The albums bleeding melodies exude sorrow; weep down upon the entirety of the album like melting icicles atop a tin roof. Depressive black metal is seen as a genre that’s stagnating, as more and more bands throw their material into a cannibalized genre, innovation is in dire need. Bands like Pensees Nocturnes affirm that this stagnation isn’t as static as it seems, that renovation and innovation aren’t as distant as we believe. Because even distance is relative, even hope is subjective, because the vaccination of existence is endowed within albums like these. They inoculate each and every listener with despair and futility, slowly breeching through insecurities and dreams, past the drivel and nonsensical fragments of meaningless emotions and thoughts. As you begin to reflect and ponder, reminisce and conceive, you realize existence has already passed you by. And now you are here. Now you are here. Now you are here.
82%
Melody is a succession of rhythms, often evoking harmonic delight or euphorical empathy, inciting affection and indiscrete emotion. It’s a stringent adherence that clings to a particular track like bark on a tree. It wraps itself around the base, thrusts itself upwards and dances around the branches in glee. The tree is embraced by it, withstanding nature and its rather unprecedented array of uncertainties. Music is comprised of countless fragments of melodies, countless arrays of structures and thoughts and instruments, all resulting in audible dissonance. No matter how you view it, music is simply fragmented and recursive. The Narrow Path is, in essence, musically unresolved.
The Narrow Path is the first full length album by Licht Erlischt, a rather obscure black metal band from Norway. After a relatively above average demo and several spurts of wordless disappearances, the album was finally released into the crowd. Much like the demo, The Narrow Path is a melodic overture, gagged and bound in a trunk of lonely and forgotten scales and notes. Instruments without musicians, keys without fingers, a track without the compassion or touch of an artist. The album is completely bound to these melodies, dependent on each and every one to progress the track in directions it would’ve otherwise completely missed. Now, I love melodies more than anyone. They’re quite possibly the most emotive pieces of work that a human being is capable of creating, and rivaled only by visual stimulus. But when an artist centers his structure and form based upon a melodic arrangement of chords, there are certain directions that simply do not work. The Narrow Path epitomizes this direction, taking a melody and wrapping it into a philosophical metamorphosis, shifting and twisting as it inevitably progresses forward. It seems he simply doesn’t understand the fact that songs end, that songs are much like our lives. We fade in and fade out, most of our time spent dead or unborn. Within these fleeting moments we’re given, we must accomplish all we desire. Not all we’re told to, not all we’re supposed to, but all we desire to. Radiance, for example, is one of the weaker tracks on the album. Indeed the melody is quite good, but the song simply lacks direction. It builds, it builds, and eventually ends, ends its dismal existence with nothing more than a putter, a tear, and a final melody.
The Narrow Path is far from amateur, and the songs in their entirety are far from weak or vague. Melody, as previously noted, is layered throughout the album. It simply gushes with melancholy. The tracks are long and slow, but the melodies are sweeping and despondent. Nerrath’s vocals are Burzum-esque, but not quite as raspy and a bit higher. Rather uninspired, they lack the somber emotion of the rest of the album. In The Offshore Oaks, he even includes clean vocals, and they fit the track perfectly. Mood and atmosphere play an important role for the album, and the melodies just continue to pour down. With more of a structured tone and a bit more thought, this could’ve been an outstanding release. The Vaultventurer, for example, boasts a very melancholic melody, and Await The Overarching Blow begins amazingly subversive. They both, however, fall into the same stale fragmentation, a lack of direction.
Licht Erlischt’s The Narrow Path is far from a terrible album, it’s simply lacking in direction. The melodies are mournful, treacherous crawls through rain-drenched streets and coves. They’re the philosophical anecdotes of mankind, of existence and time. They tread beaten paths of disappointment and success, unknowingly recreating existence and error. Deceit, sorrow, suffering; all fragments of melody. Composition is the glue that binds these emotive works of being together, entwines the listener into the world they’ve created. Without them, music is senseless drivel, a scapegoat for existence. A moniker for melodic suicide. A distant, melancholic melody that breathes in the distance, captured and coveted and strung up. Vastness embraces it, reconstructs it, and rewinds it. Why piece together the fragments of melody – beauty, sorrow, despair; the stagnated bits and pieces you never bothered to notice?
71%
Title: The Double Life Of Veronique
Release Date: 1991
Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
“When we stroll through a street at night, and a man, already visible from far away (for the street rises in front of us and there is a full moon), comes running toward us, we will not grab hold of him, even if he is weak and ragged, even if someone is running after him and yelling; we will simply let him run on.
For it is night, and we cannot help it if the street rises in front of us in the full moon, and besides: perhaps these two people are staging the chase for their own amusement, perhaps the two of them are pursuing a third, perhaps the first man is being pursued through no fault of his own, perhaps the second one wants to murder him, and we will be accomplices to the murder, perhaps the two of them know nothing of one another, and each is simply running home to bed on his own account, perhaps they are sleepwalking, perhaps the first man is armed.
And anyway, don’t we have the right to be tired, haven’t we drunk a lot of wine? We are glad that we no longer see the second one either.“
-Franz Kafka
99%
Title: Naked
Release Date: 1993
Director: Mike Leigh
You awaken to a ruined land, a city in ruins, society eclipsed by its own heartbeat. The final scene of armageddon finally exploding to a halt, the billowing smoke and heavy clouds cast dark shadows across the land, death and decay taint the air with its menacing and grueling face. Wandering souls and haunted spirits are all that’s left; you are the lone heart in a bloodless world. The soundscape an apocalyptic dirge, somewhat reminiscent of a blind man choking on his own blood. The guttural gurgling of swollen tendons and rushing waves of heart lubricant slowly pounding down, teeth and tongue seeking refuge stuffed deep within the esophagus.
And then you awaken. You awaken to the brittle foundation of a broken, timeless home. A home without physical adherences or natural boundaries, a home free from the rules set forth by time. You scamper around the dirt-laden floor like a rat blinded by the doors light, a cowering child from a drunken father, a scattering bag of fallen marbles. You awaken. Welcome to purgatory.
Naked, Mike Leigh’s own methodical apocalyptic dirge, is a compelling, thought-provoking film that transcends well beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Take the rough edges and outer limits of your comprehensive scope of thought and articulate it into one of the most beautiful films ever put on negative. Naked is the story of Johnny, a stray mind wandering the streets of London and its surrounding back yards. He’s completely naked, not in the literal sense, of the enigmatic paradox society has sloped into. A society seemingly running on lucid dreams, when in reality, is stumbling around in the dark, groping around for something more tangible, or rather intangible. He’s deaths entrepreneur, a bureaucratic loner in the business of apocalyptic seething, a manifestation of the alluring fallacy projected forth by humanity. Johnny is unemployed and homeless, but one of the most intelligent social misfits London may never know. His macabre articulation of doomsday and disregarded rants of life and the wasted potential humanity is further proof that Johnny is no ordinary low life. His career choice seems to be unemployment, floating about the city as he stomps the light out of everyone’s candle.
Johnny, while pessimistic and downright arrogant, is the raw aggregation of existential hatred. He is the meaning of life; he is the very definition of what it means to survive. Nothing matters, nothing you say or do matters, nothing you create or destroy matters, nothing you change matters. You are not the sole center of the universe, you are nothing. Johnny, through his destructive yet lucent rants, tries his very best to explain the world outside of this little box we’re caged inside. Cowering in fear and drenched in ignorance, we deny anything that isn’t quite standard. Anything that questions our beliefs or our morals is completely void, no questions asked, no proof presented could change this. What are you living for? Are you living to hold tangible, physical, ‘real’ things in your hands? You work your time away, saving and spending, living and breathing, tasting and pissing. You recycle yourself to the problematic science of this materialistic world, comparing and contrasting, buying and selling. If you work to achieve status and currency, what do you live for? Are you just dying to live, or living to die?
As Johnny himself points out for us, you can read thousands of books, you can scour the earth for eternity, you can taste from the tree of life, yet all of your books and discussions and knowledge still won’t help you realize the true purpose of this life. We’re all aimlessly wandering around this uncharted and vapid labyrinth of illogical strings of events. Where it’s going nobody knows, where it stops is anyone’s guess. Life moves at an incomprehensible speed, the vastness and complexity of it is unparalleled by anything our minds could ever comprehend. Johnny is that minimalistic void in the foreground of our thoughts, that vicarious conundrum bouncing around whispering “I know…” His self-indulgence is justified in his maniacal state of consciousness, his aimless wandering and seemingly incoherent spouts of thought are completely and utterly perfect. He’s careless, hopeless, ceaseless.
I can’t say enough about Naked that would do it any justice. It seems as though I’m trying to justify a pessimistic view of humanity without penetrating the delusional state of ranting. This is a movie driven by reality, a movie that builds upon the thoughts that have already entered your stream of questions. Alienation and discontent riddle the exposed skin with gaping holes, but knowing that none of it matters anyway leaves you with a feeling of awareness. It may just be a movie, but this is your life. You are that hopeless ameba floating between the rivers of life. You are that touching soul wandering the rainy streets of some distant town, watching the faces in the crowd as they float by. You are hopeless, without repercussions, without true knowledge, without emotions or delegates or dreams. You continue to ponder and question and seek, yet the further you progress the farther you fall. Is life truly worth saving? No, it truly is not.
96%
Title: Cries and Whispers
Release Date: 1972
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman is a director I’ve been desperately trying to grasp for quite awhile now. Maybe it’s his style, maybe it’s the momentum, maybe it’s the structure and general composition of the movies that I just don’t quite get. On paper, Ingmar Bergman is a director I should love. He’s subtle enough yet blatant enough with his message and his films usually deal with emotions and moments that I’m a fan of in other directors. Fanny and Alexander was excellent, both a lush, beautiful exploration of life’s crossroads and the problems and issues that arise out of certain thematic predicaments. Through A Glass Darkly was, while not as awe-inspiring as Fanny and Alexander, a tragic and passionate film that wove the abstruse mysteries of life and false beliefs into a foaming collage of happiness and order (however depressing the film may actually be). I came into Cries and Whispers expecting great things, yet was left with a feeling of discontent.
Let’s start with what I enjoyed about the film, as little as that was. The colors Bergman used were, right off the bat, heavy handed and wonderfully done. When I think of red, I think of passion, of friction, of hatred and burning emotion. All of these are present within the entire span of the film, whether it was within the characters themselves or showcased beyond the tangible world of actors and sets. Maybe it was just something I noticed, but red was the dominant color on the interior of almost everything, perhaps subtly displaying how candid each individual was behind their facade. Another aspect of the film I enjoyed was the unsettling and unspoken tragedy that has somehow ripped through the family. It seems as though there is some sort of sporadic and spontaneous event that lingered above each character, creating a sense of nervousness and trembling throughout the entire film.
And that’s where it ends. Everything else about the film either pissed me off or evoked an eye-roll or two. Let’s start with Bergman’s perhaps unintentional incapability to form any sort of storyline with the consistency and momentum required to progress the characters beyond card board cut outs. Maria was the most interesting character out of the bunch of hags, even if she was a self-indulgent whore who pranced about gaily as her husband bleeds to death and her flirtatious advances on the doctor are severally hindered. The housekeeper was a rigid and fanatical lesbian cooped up inside her weak mind, flopping her boobs out whenever her lady moaned deep enough. The ambiguity underlying these scenes are not strokes of genius, nor are they artistic or beautiful in anyway. They are bombastic portrayals of several lives entwined by a tragic situation and the meager feelings provoked by it. The conversations are laughable and blatantly pompous articulations of Bergman’s own tragic pathos. There was no depth, no true sentiment behind anything any of the characters actually stated. Let’s not forget the uninspired self-mutilation scene and random, incoherent character flashes, complete with “cries and whispers”.
The cinematography of the film was also horrendously and laughably bad. Illogical, inert zooms on the characters broke the atmosphere one too many times. I’d be following a character, slowly and finally being immersed into the film, and suddenly, out of nowhere, the camera zooms up into one of the hags face like she’s got something super important to say. Usually they’d just be passing around a corner or daydreaming, nothing of interest to say and no emotion to display. The camera felt amateurish, like some low-budget horror soap opera on CBS. It captured the moments of emotion on the decline, lofted over couches and chairs, feebly marching around the corners touting itself as it blazed into the emotional battlefield Bergman had created. Or the crapfest it ended up being.
As hard as I want to enjoy Bergman, it seems his films just aren’t for me. It’s not that I ‘don’t get it’, nor is it that I don’t possess the emotional and intellectual capacity to fully understand his films. I do. What I don’t enjoy is how he bludgeons the viewer relentlessly with his uncanny ability to segment emotion, however confusing that may sound. His dissimulation of love and mismanagement of the frail emotions he’s lauded for absolutely bewilders me, considering how many films he has under his belt. The stories heart dwells and depends on the characters and the interaction they’re seemingly hindered by. Bergman, however, fumbled this ball miserably. Cries and Whispers is nothing more than an erogenous metaphor for the menstrual cycle, played out in a wooden house with red walls and lofty lesbians. Let’s pretend your emotional behemoth wasn’t simply Tampax propaganda Bergman, I’m willing to give you another shot.
40%
Title: Damnation
Release Date: 1988
Director: Béla Tarr
Bela Tarr continues to absolutely floor me with every single shot he produces. Just days after viewing the masterpiece known as Werckmeister Harmonies, I’m subject to a previous film by him, Damnation. This film, when juxtaposed with Werckmeister Harmonies, stands shoulder to shoulder beside it.
The film is filled with symbolic imagery, drab landscapes and stark black and white cinematography. The shots are just as satisfying as they are prudent, the camera drifting off into the shallow depths of the muddy fields it portrays. The story is simple. A man falls in love with a married singer and attempts to lure the husband away allowing him more time with the women. A simple story delving into the deepest questions of human existence, an existential journey through the rainy fields of our linear plane of existence. The film portrays life’s banalities, it stalks and questions the very existence of our lives and this insipid paradigm we thrive in.
The entire span of the film is unbearably hopeless, prolonged shots futher expand upon the emptiness the protoganist trudges through. It’s almost as if the film reveals the last days of earth, the end of time and final moments of his somber life. The continues shots of torrential rainfall and wild packs of lost dogs further push hope and it’s futility upon the viewer. The final scene in the film is painstakingly brilliant in every possible way. I don’t want to elaborate, but it ties in with several of the conversations had throughout the film. Pay attention. The dog a story, the man a story, the rain a story, all disintegrating into some abysmal void never to be seen again. All stories eventually decay and disintegrate, all heroes eventually die.
Symbolism, whether Bella Tarr realizes it or not, is heavily present in his film. It’s ignorant to claim the opening scene, the dogs, the rain, the fog, the dancing and subtle calamity that the characters are subject to is all for nothing, for pure cinematic effect. Damnation is yet another brilliant work of art, another cinematic masterpiece that somehow slipped by me unnoticed. See this film by yourself, without any distractions or outside influences or preconceptions. It’s a personal voyage through desolation and reclusive resurrection, a personal abandonment of entitlement and self worth. Your story, in the end, will soon enough dissipate.
94%
Title: Werckmeister Harmonies
Release Date: 2000
Director: Béla Tarr
There are certain movies that, after your initial viewing, feel that they’ve been specifically tailored for you. Movies that have that instant feeling of personalization, a direct extension of your mentality and individuality. Werckmeister Harmonies is a direct extension of myself, a sequel to my life, or a prequel, and an extremely grim and frostbitten adventure into the decadence of a small town isolated from civilization and terrorized by an oversized white whale. Béla Tarr has created one of the most spellbinding and emancipated films I’ve ever seen in my entire life, a film that transcends a simple cinematic adventure and mentally and physically latches onto you as a person, tugging and tearing at your emotions and mind as it breezes past. Simply breezes.
The cinematography is absolutely fantastic, breaking all cinematic conventions and tossing the viewer back into his own mind, allowing the viewer to indulge themselves in the moment. The film throws many ideas at the viewer, yet gives them plenty of time to reflect on each and every idea. Long tracking shots setting the distant background to simply stare at, lost inside your own thoughts and mind, crawling around as you scuffle for some sort of humane supposition to the hopelessness and unbearable loneliness of the small town.
There are so many scenes that were absolutely fantastic I can’t even begin to go into any details. The first and most prominent scene being the first shot, or the first ten minutes rather, where János is demonstrating the universe to the townsfolk. The very moment he began to discuss the eclipse my heart stopped, the music began, the shot a standstill, that very moment captured and held dangling above our heads. One of the most beautiful and pristine cinematic moments I have ever witnessed.
Another shot appearing towards the end when the rioters are tearing apart the hospital. The entire scene is completely devoid of dialogue, the violent sounds of wood and human flesh colliding into a disdainful tone of harmonic rage. The hospital is ripped to shreds in a mere five minutes, the rioters continue their menacing rampage setting fires and beating the sick and crippled without mercy. Suddenly, a seemingly ordinary door is opened. Beyond the door stands an elderly man, completely nude and helplessly void of portent. Transfixed upon the old man, the crowd ceases their rampage and solemnly leaves the building. The morning after the town is restored to order, the circus music ceases to entrance the townsfolk, the whale exposed as a mere fallacy, the harmony of remembrance reverberating throughout the town halls and chapels.
Without a doubt one of the most absorbing, transcendent, delicately crafted films I’ve seen in quite some time. As difficult as it may be for some to endure such a prolonged exposure to pure atmosphere, your patience will surely be paid off as the film comes to a close. The cinematic direction and ceaseless plundering of personal reflection and question are unbearably unique and flawlessly executed. As unnecessary as some shots may seem, they are more than likely the most important. The shot highlighting the crowds rage, the camera gliding through the crowd as it catches glimpses of the faces of the hypnotized, the two minute walking scene between János and his uncle, the seemingly unnecessary time spent on characters faces and actions are all completely full of emotion and thought. Not one moment is wasted or revoked or overstayed, not one emotion is withheld or abandoned.
96%
Title: Seul contre tous (I Stand Alone)
Release Date: 1998
Director: Gaspar Noé
Wow. What we have here is gritty, surreal French film highlighting the mental decadence of a decaying, lifeless butcher destined for emptiness. The entire movie is undeniably hollow, glimpses of hope and joy are no where to be found and the fleeting desperation our protagonist latches onto leads him to question the morality and righteousness of society. Is society right in its ways? Who is to decide what is considered taboo and acceptable? Happiness is just as subjective and variable as the weather, the unprecedented urges and preconceptions we have on love and joy are fleeting and personal, why is that we are bound by invisible rules and regulations? Is it possible that we’re so afraid to stray from the confines of a moral and social adherence that we’re feared into conformity?
The film is highly reminiscent of Taxi Driver, both characters feel driven by a dominant sexual compulsion and undeniable hatred for society. The difference lies in the type of angst they endure. While Taxi Driver is more about the grueling futility of resisting fantasies and the inescapable inevitability of insanity, I Stand Alone is about the smothered rage that slowly builds from loneliness and solitude, the dwindling moments the character latches onto slowly burning away as the film highlights these final moments. I Stand Alone is told mainly in first person narrative, the protagonist lashing out against society, his family, the world, love, anything and everything that is wrong with today’s society. The only way to escape this pain is to leave it, once and for all.
Extremely violent and gritty, this film accentuates the intensity and raw power of emotion and solitude. A life without love or hope, the bleakness of emotional turmoil to the point of breaking, the unwillingness for society to accept standards outside of our preconceived notions and comfort, this film portrays life on the other side. Life is a selfish act.
85%
Title: Funny Games
Release Date: 2008
Director: Michael Haneke
I discuss moments of the film that would be considered spoilers. Therefore, this is your only warning.
I can’t say I enjoyed this film. I can’t say I didn’t want to turn it off. I can’t say I’ve felt such mental agony during a movie in quite some time. What I can say, however, is Michael Haneke has crafted one of the most unnerving films I’ve seen in the past few years. Beyond the critics brazen ignorance and unnecessary bashing lies a film with such ferocity and subtly I can’t quite fathom how an individual can see this film and not feel horrible. The sheer brilliance in both script and direction is unquestionably relentless, and that may be the very point that turns people away from it. What most viewers don’t understand, however, is you are NOT supposed to walk away from this film with a joyful hop to your step. You are most certainly not, in any way, expected to have enjoyed this or trotted away anticipating a sequel. The film moves in with its message swiftly and effortlessly yet verocious enough to absolutely destroy your senseless facade of security.
The film portrays a family attending a lake house for the weekend, a wife and husband along with their only son driving down winding and twisting roads, a boat hitched to the back and a few classical albums for their enjoyment. Ironic and delusional, it seems. Shortly after arriving at their lake house, the couple is greeted by two of the most patient, polite, yet disobediant males they’ve seemingly ever encountered. Outfitted in white golf clothes and gloves, the two begin to take control of the family and their home. From this point on, the games have begun. The two swiftly transition the family from relaxation to mental torture, a shroud of helplessness draped over their eyes as they are subject to twelve hours of unbearable horror. There is no room for exhalation or relaxation. There is no time spent on inane dialogue or questionable ‘rescue’ attempts. There is simply hopelessness, desperation, a tainted stench of salvation gawking at the family from above, no cages or bounds in sight. Nothing but mental decedance.
This is not a film filled to the brim with gore and blood, hateful vows and detestful, squeemish murders or rapes. The film strips the flash and glamour of American horror and portrays the raw terror of human demise. There is nothing enjoyable about suffering and pain, there is absolutely nothing funny about humans being tortured in the most despicable of ways. Why do we enjoy it so much? Why are the Saw films and Hostel films so popular in todays culture? Do we honestly enjoy watching people die? Think about it. Michael Haneke knows it, the two men in Funny Games know it, and they both certainly show it. The leading boy shatters the fourth wall several times during the film. Meaning, he actually acknowledges the audience, questioning their motives for watching the film or what our expectations should be as it progresses. It further questions the viewer beyond simply providing the visuals. Why?
The film brings in hope only twice during its entire span. The first being near the beginning, when the father and son are preparing the boat to go sailing. The camera briefly notes a knife, sitting on the boat deck before a rope pulls it into the innards. Nothing more is noted about the knife until the very end, when we see the two men leading Ann down into the boat. At this point, the viewer is supposed to be thinking, “Oh! The knife is there! She’s going to kill them both and sail off into the sunset!”. As the two men are rowing and chatting, Ann picks up the knife and starts cutting the ropes tied around her wrists. But wait! The two notice her, casually poke fun at her and throw the knife into the water. All hope diminished. The second instance is during the prayer scene when Ann blows one of the men away with the nearby shotgun. At this point, the audience has their one wish, a violent catharsis of deliverance. Gruesome and bloody, just like we Americans like it. As the remaining boy searches around for the remote control, the audience is bewildered, dumbstruck by the one violent act the director finally gives us. As the boy fumbles with the remote, the film stops. Frozen in a single moment. Then, suddenly, rewinds. Gone was the shotgun homicide, gone was the audiences one fleeting moment of joy and redemption, rewound in time and blemished by the strange revision of that concurrent moment. Back in time, the boy stops her from grabbing the shotgun, the audience either flustered or confused, the realization that their one chance for atonement revoked and carelessly tossed aside. This act of rewinding has confused critics and viewers across the nation, screams of “sell-out” and “stupidity” echoing the forums and newspapers of the reviewing world. This is, in fact, exactly what Haneke wants. The louder you scream, the more you prove his point. We are a society compulsively obsessed with relentless violence and heinous acts of human deprivation and torture. Is that truly enjoyable?
This film shatters the bounds of convention, straying from the confines of what defines a horror or drama or thriller. A perpetual assualt on your tragic sense of nobility and inane sense of uniqueness, a putrid display of human aesthetics diminishing one moment at a time, Funny Games does not allow sunlight to break through its bleak atmosphere. There is no cushion or joy to be found, and it certainly should feel no remorse for the grotesque acts it portrays. Michael Haneke should be lauded by Americans everywhere, but instead, it seems to be plagued by the ignorance and self-indulgence of your everyday typical American. Short on story, heavy on gore seems to be the winning formula in todays market. Watch Funny Games without your preconceptions, without your taboo nature and sense of appeasement, alone, without worry of prejudice or a social lashing. Don’t allow your mental inadequacies to deter you from this film, it’s more than worth watching.
88%
