Funny Games (2008)

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.

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