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Funny Games (2007)

Time Out rating

Average user rating

2 reviews

Synopsis

For his English-language debut, master agitator Michael Haneke relocates his own 1997 thriller about a violent home invasion to Long Island.

Movie review

From Time Out London

The first things to consider with ‘Funny Games ’ – Michael Haneke’s near shot-for-shot ‘Hollywood’ refashioning of his 1997 Austrian intellectual horror – are the tricky matters of context and remakes.

Haneke’s original, which saw a holidaying bourgeois family marauded, for no apparent reason, by a pair of affectless young sociopaths, was a coruscating critique of cinematic violence disguised cleverly within the classic lineaments of the, mainly US-made, ‘ordeal’ shocker. This new version adds nothing novel, but it lacks none of the original’s bite.

The polite, homicidal, white-glove-wearing house-guests are played, very menacingly, by Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet, with Naomi Watts and Tim Roth – raw and credible – as their terrorised victims. On the downside, Haneke’s decision to leave everything unchanged, down to every carefully chosen camera angle, makes the film a little disappointing to his fans, who may feel, like this writer, that with ‘Code Unknown’ and ‘Hidden’, he had moved beyond the in-your-face strategies of the old ‘Funny Games’.

But Haneke clearly wants to be where the action is, both morally and commercially. Why preach about the effects of unexamined representations of violence to the converted, when you can express it in the consumer heartland? The remake is, then, a confrontational, political act, and Haneke’s cinema is, partly, a confrontational, political cinema.

If it were only that, ‘Funny Games’ would be doomed to fail. It’s already been given a cool reception by US critics, keen to warn their readers of a wolf approaching in sheep’s clothing. Some may feel they’ve been over-protective. ‘Funny Games’ has the appearance of a genre chiller, precisely because it is one – and a bloody good one at that; and, while it may play games with audience expectations, what good horror film doesn’t?

Many horror films crumble on close inspection. ‘Funny Games’, though, looks sturdier the harder you look and tends to throw the genre as a whole under the microscope, or at least those of the more morally suspect variety. Many such films trade on fake re-assurance, not genuine fears.

Pitt and Corbet’s psychopaths are as unfathomable a couple of evil-doers as we’ve seen since Hitchcock paired John Dall and Farley Granger in ‘Rope’ – and what could be more frightening than that? Haneke shares much in common with Hitchcock, notably his awesome cinematic precision. But here he goes further than even Hitch dared, by questioning the very basis of horror’s entertainment value, not least by inviting us to consider our complicity in consuming the images that haunt our worst nightmares.

Where ‘Funny Games’ has a problem, then, may not be in its failure but rather in its success. It’s not that it has no shocks, but that they cut too deep – not only to our fears of the unexpected, of harm, but also right to the base of our power-relations, and notions of dignity, love, honour and self-sacrifice. It’s not a reassuring vision but that’s not the name of Haneke’s particular game.

Author: Wally Hammond

Time Out London Issue 1963 – April 3 – 9

User reviews of this film

rb said...

Posted on May 01 2008 19:33 i think you kind of missed the point, wally. the whole point of the remake was to bring this fim-philosophical treatise on violence as entertainment to an american audience.

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Apr 11 2008 14:04 provocative games -set -match =winner haneke
haneke takes u.s.a on a satirical ride with its bourgeois middle class family-sv40-dog-pretty wife-one kid-holiday second home,this fits and works better in u.s then austria,as the characters are violently funny and measure up to the current american morality,the protagonists pitt-corbett walk into the posh farber house asking for eggs and then terrorise the 3 victims in THEIR OMN HOME,with pitt adressing the camera and doing the great rewind touch when an incident does not conclude to his meticulously planned violent concourse,haneke is tasteful unlike the hollywood slashers ,none of the violence or nudity is actually shown,the execution left for imagination and the act suggested,
the perception of the reality is the concept here,unlike MARGOT AT WEDDING where masturbating women actually adorn the screen,naomi watts is a seriously good prototype for a 30 something house wife[compared to kidman as margot]and here she changes from a delightful neighbour to a protective mother to a numbed victim in a total transformation -both pitt as the active perpetrator and watt as the victim who fight back steal the movie,but it works primarily for the intelligence imbued on it by haneke,he almost makes this a modern global fable-the 2 anglo saxon bullies can easily be BUSH-BLAIR with their self taunts,white tennis outfits with matching gloves-who go terrorising rich homes[iraq]for purely sadomasochistic reasons-the reality also is shocking as no one comes to help the victims as in todays reality,the predators are charming with polite ,excellent manners akin to the allies and their propaganda machine -the results as disastrous and pointless as the war itself ,
THE AMIGUOUS sexuality of the duo,their ambidextrous skills with weponry whether it be chesterfield or golf clubs ,their ability to joke and murder dually is nauseating yet ring true ,their total lack of remorse,appetite for steak while nauseatingly shooting live human beings actually is a seething satire on the anglo-american behaviour in iraqi prison camps captured on hdtv videocams -it also mixes footage of bobby racing his cars on the tracks and various other television images to vicariously depict the vulgarity and violence of the public media-an allusion or a metaphor ,it is all yours to decide ,
the kids bowel bladder incontinence induced by fear is referred to as a lack of housebreaking negligence due to his mothers lack of training ,it is dark humour and it is pathologically affective ,yet never titillting ,nor correctional or sermonising .it just describes what our social milieu has transformed into presently .
this is a provokingly painful movie to watch for american intellectuals as well as the brits as it descRibes the moral disaster today in a logical manner ,with chic shots of suburban homes and blood splattered HD tvs ,kids being smothered in white masks with wives being ordered to strip to entertain guests by tortured spouses.
its too real to be comfy but powerful enough to be great cinema ,
naive-dEfinitely not ,designed to provoke -maybe ,upsetting the targetted audience -well and truly,yet tastefully but gratuitously violent always
get ready to squirm and be jolted out of your seat -but even any mention of SAW or comparison to HOSTEL IS NOT JUST INCONGRUOUS BUT A CINEMATIC BLASPHEMY.
this remake is an instant cult classic in its own right and haneke has played a perfect tennis game with his cold blooded self professed drug addicted killers and their desperate suburban victims too comfortable in their mundane lives to appreciate the pain of sufferring so rampant today globally.this is a deadly parable of our suburban lives today ,which have become equally violent and predictable in their predicament
GAME SET MATCH ALL TO HANEKE-you win hands down
rewind time -remake -a fearsome frolic and a serious debate on mass murder and morality in modern times in the manner of ROPE by hitchcock -but truly reviving and insanely cerebral-haneke you are a true intellectual .
usman khawaja - jbz7879

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Apr 11 2008 14:01 provocative games -set -match =winner haneke
haneke takes u.s.a on a satirical ride with its bourgeois middle class family-sv40-dog-pretty wife-one kid-holiday second home,this fits and works better in u.s then austria,as the characters are violently funny and measure up to the current american morality,the protagonists pitt-corbett walk into the posh farber house asking for eggs and then terrorise the 3 victims in THEIR OMN HOME,with pitt adressing the camera and doing the great rewind touch when an incident does not conclude to his meticulously planned violent concourse,haneke is tasteful unlike the hollywood slashers ,none of the violence or nudity is actually shown,the execution left for imagination and the act suggested,
the perception of the reality is the concept here,unlike MARGOT AT WEDDING where masturbating women actually adorn the screen,naomi watts is a seriously good prototype for a 30 something house wife[compared to kidman as margot]and here she changes from a delightful neighbour to a protective mother to a numbed victim in a total transformation -both pitt as the active perpetrator and watt as the victim who fight back steal the movie,but it works primarily for the intelligence imbued on it by haneke,he almost makes this a modern global fable-the 2 anglo saxon bullies can easily be BUSH-BLAIR with their self taunts,white tennis outfits with matching gloves-who go terrorising rich homes[iraq]for purely sadomasochistic reasons-the reality also is shocking as no one comes to help the victims as in todays reality,the predators are charming with polite ,excellent manners akin to the allies and their propaganda machine -the results as disastrous and pointless as the war itself ,
THE AMIGUOUS sexuality of the duo,their ambidextrous skills with weponry whether it be chesterfield or golf clubs ,their ability to joke and murder dually is nauseating yet ring true ,their total lack of remorse,appetite for steak while nauseatingly shooting live human beings actually is a seething satire on the anglo-american behaviour in iraqi prison camps captured on hdtv videocams -it also mixes footage of bobby racing his cars on the tracks and various other television images to vicariously depict the vulgarity and violence of the public media-an allusion or a metaphor ,it is all yours to decide ,
the kids bowel bladder incontinence induced by fear is referred to as a lack of housebreaking negligence due to his mothers lack of training ,it is dark humour and it is pathologically affective ,yet never titillting ,nor correctional or sermonising .it just describes what our social milieu has transformed into presently .
this is a provokingly painful movie to watch for american intellectuals as well as the brits as it descRibes the moral disaster today in a logical manner ,with chic shots of suburban homes and blood splattered HD tvs ,kids being smothered in white masks with wives being ordered to strip to entertain guests by tortured spouses.
its too real to be comfortable but powerful enough to be great cinema ,and who said cunema is only foe entertainment ,this is neither correctional nor sermonising ,its an observation and its witty ,playful and gratuitously yet intelligently violent ,but so are our suburban present lives
naive-definitely not ,designed to provoke -maybe ,upsetting the targetted audience -well and truly,tasteful always yet relistic all the way
get ready to squirm and jolted out of your seat -but even any mention of SAW or comparison to HOSTEL IS NOT JUST INCONGRUOUS BUT A CINEMATIC BLASPHEMY.
this remake is an instant cult classic in its own right and haneke has played a perfect tennis game with his cold blooded self professed drug addicted killers and their desperate suburban victims too comfy in their mundane lives to appreciate the pain of sufferring so rampant today globally.
GAME SET MATCH ALL TO HANEKE-you win hands down
rewind time -remake -a fearsome frolic and a serious debate on mass murder and morality in modern times in the manner of ROPE by hitchcock -but truly reviving and insanely cerebral-haneke you are a true intellectual .
usman khawaja - jbz7879
Readers' Reviews (130) Related Articles

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Technoguy said...

Posted on Apr 06 2008 18:11 Haneke is a serious intellectual auter. Stange that he felt the need to do this shot for shot remake.But he is remaking himself in another more mainstream language.There is no fake sentimentality,consolation or redemption in his vision.Two pseodo-intellectual
sociopaths enter the field like Pinter's Goldberg and McCann in The Birthday Party. Hanneke had no need to go over this old ground after the sophistication of
'Hidden'.But like Cronenburg he wishes to enter the mainstream audiences and utilizes well known actors to get his fundamental message across.At least he is remaking himself.But what next?

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John said...

Posted on Apr 04 2008 16:07 Great film

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