Review of Funny Games (1997) by Orhan D — 10 Jan 2012

'Perverse' best describes this family vacation spoiled by the most well-mannered home invaders ever to wear white shorts. The film opens with an affluent father, mother & son driving towards their summer cottage on the lake and playing a guessing game with the opera pieces on the stereo. We are soothed by beautiful voices which are suddenly interrupted once the opening titles are rolled by a horrible screaming over discordant death-rock rattles, a brilliant foreshadowing of how the idyllic will later be shattered by chaos.

This isn't your typical horror film: director Michael Haneke intends to test the audience's willing participation as an observer and uses our expectations against us. Most of the violence takes place offscreen, but the emotional toll is greater than any ten slasher films. One of the assailants even talks directly to the camera several times, at one point suggesting they prolong the agony of their captives to "pad the running time" so we "get our money's worth." Audacious, to say the least! Open acknowledgment that the actors *are* actors, the whole movie is just A MOVIE, and we are the ones inflicting psychological torture on ourselves by choosing to watch. The coup de gras involves a remote control, a complete barefaced manipulative cheat that works to perfection. This is not a movie you will actively enjoy but will push you into contemplating your twisted inner desire for 'entertainment' and the very nature of the filmgoing experience for days afterwards.

***MINOR SPOILER ALERT***.

After having previously seen Cache, Haneke's proclivity for long takes is clear, but I really question the sequence following the first shooting. The film loses all steam while they try to pull themselves together. I suspect he is testing our patience as an audience that has witnessed a thousand movie murders with our collective reaction of "Get on with it!" by trying to force us to deal with the enormity of the act and callousness within ourselves, but that would've been accomplished in a third of the time.