Review of Benny's Video (1992) by Chris M — 10 May 2012

Bleak, depressing, slow, haunting, profound. Everything you should expect from a great Michael Haneke film. NB: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SERIOUS SPOILERS...

Benny is an insular teenager who spends most of his life in his blacked-out room, watching violent videos, listening to thrash metal and with a seemingly constant flow of TV news imagery of death, war and atrocity. His parents seem distant at best and he just drifts from school to home and back again.

Then, seemingly at random, he asks a stranger back to their apartment, where he kills her with a cattle bolt gun. It comes completely without warning and is one of the most disturbing scenes I've ever seen. At least at first he seems unmoved by what he's done, desensitised, divorced from the event. It's as though it happened somewhere else, to someone else.

When his parents discover what has taken place, their reaction is far, far more disturbing. Almost devoid of emotion, they discuss how to protect him, how to pretend it never happened.

Haneke is merciless in his depiction of alienation in the face of a society steeped in violence, and this is a pretty tough watch. It unfolds deliberately in a way that is always threatening, filled with dread but similarly seems to challenge and alienate the viewer. Not for everyone by any means, but IMHO a very important film about responsibility & humanity.