Review of Funny Games (1997) by Matthew S — 26 Mar 2015

This was the third film I've seen by Michael Haneke, after his more recent Palme d'Or winners The White Ribbon and Amour; and, while I know he's a very well-respected director with a large body of work I should hypothetically see more of, every film I see by Haneke convinces me more and more that he's actually a phony - a snide pseudo-intellectual who has watched the films of better directors and can imitate them well enough to get similar praise but whose films are actually empty and have nothing genuine to say.

The premise of Funny Games (I watched the Austrian original, not the American remake, which apparently follows it quite closely) is simple: a couple of young sociopaths intrude into the home of a bourgeois family and sadistically torture them, both physically and psychologically, and eventually kill them. That's basically it. Along the way, one of the killers periodically turns to the camera and addresses the audience directly, commenting on the story and the audience's relationship to it.

I think part of why Haneke has gotten so much praise and attention is that he's just smart enough to make his movies look like they should mean something. I think he's seen a lot of long, slow-paced, serious European art films by better directors - such as Bergman, Antonioni, and Tarkovsky - and can imitate their aesthetic closely enough that people think he's on their same level. For instance, there's a ten-minute unbroken shot here of two of the victims in the room with almost no dialogue and no action - they're just sitting there. On the surface, it seems like something Tarkovsky might have done, and I think that's why Haneke does it. However, unlike in Tarkovsky, the self-conscious length and stillness of the shot really does not feel justified by anything within it, nor does it feel of a piece with the rest of the film around it. All it really does is bring the film screeching to a halt - there's a period of about 20 minutes in this movie that are among the most boring 20 minutes I've ever seen in any movie. Similarly, the device of having one of the characters directly address the audience - borrowed from Brecht or from postmodern authors or filmmakers - here feels like a tacked-on gimmick. It does not feel of a piece with the rest of the movie, and it does not engage the audience's understanding in anything other than the most shallow and obvious of ways. "Oh, you're so right, Haneke - I'm watching this violent movie. I guess that means Hollywood has warped my mind! Oh no! Actually, wait, go fuck yourself, Haneke. I can think about the nature of my own relationship to the material I'm watching on my own without you tacking on a cheap gag to make me do so.".

So, to be fair, I realize I should probably see more of Haneke's films before passing any sort of final judgment on him. But, at the moment, being three movies in, I can say confidently that nothing I have seen from Haneke convinces me that he is anything other than a poser imitating the aesthetic gestures of Antonioni, Tarkovsky, and others without any of their actual meaning or depth. I'm pretty sure the guy's a big, fat phony.