Review of Funny Games (1997) by Joey S — 29 Jan 2013

A brutal experiment that is less a conventional narrative than it is a commentary on violence being glamorized in films to look shiny and cool. Funny Games is by far the least sophisticated Michael Haneke film that I have seen, but it still provokes the viewer to consider the controversial topic of how violence is portrayed in films.

Funny Games is aimed squarely at the films of Quentin Tarantino and similar directors, whose characters spout witty phrases before committing what in reality would be considered horrendous atrocities.

The film makes a number of frustrating choices near the end, especially the breaking of the fourth wall by one of the characters, as he talks directly to the viewer in order to drive the message further down your throat.

It also has a number of shots that, like those in Michael Haneke's other films, linger for periods of time. However, in this case they last painfully long, as at one point there is a shot that lasts nearly five full minutes, with little to no action happening and absolutely no dialogue.

Following this, there's another few scenes where the characters are shown in real-time helping each other stand up after a traumatic series of events, also with very little dialogue. This lasts for about another five minutes, creating ten full minutes where I just wanted to bang my head against a wall and wonder why these scenes needed to drag on for this long.

For most of the film though it's kept provocative and disturbing enough that it's hard to do anything but watch in a combination of fear and disgust, which was very much the intention of Haneke.

Still, even as a forceful way to communicate a serious message, Funny Games is far from spectacular, and despite a number of shockingly violent scenes it's ultimately just torture porn with a moral.