Review of Funny Games (1997) by James R — 04 Jun 2009

I always have mixed reactions about movies which take the shortcut of "portraying" and "pointing" out issues such as teenage violence and the influence of the mass media, while being both part of that particular mass media and portraying the violence and terror with so much "verve" that you could almost call it delightful, which in turn means it must be tasteless.

Funny games follows the events of a family being held hostage and tortured in thei holiday residence, that is it as far as the story goes. Yet, the direction makes this movie both better than average as well as interesting. The movie is not gory but subtly terrifying which is far more effective given the fact that the view has a vivid imagination. The lack of which in common audiences least to the success of movies such as Saw and Hostel.

Besides being utterly terrifyng, the movie encapsules fear of what might happen next more than many (especially American) movies did in the last 30 years. The movie does not follow any common "scheme" or "railroad" ordinary horror / terror films go and you will be shocked not as much by the violence but by what is happening, because it is so untypical for a movie to break with cinema tradition, this is a thumbs up and generates far more effect than blood and guts.

Yet, as I said before, the movie must be taken with a pinch of salt. To be a mediacritical movie, there is way too less of mediacriticism in it, and too many scenes which let the "evil" people look cool, a sign of the tendency to use violence as masturbation assistant for young male egos. Although, the director Michael Haneke stated that should the movie be successful it would be proof of the audiences misunderstanding it, I have to say that it is him who made this movie and he cannot hide behind the mask of intellectual superioity. The movie is violent and disturbing, but essential for movie lovers when it comes to technique and script.

The cast is solid but not magical, as with most Austrian/German movies.. Ulrich Muehe is better known for his later success with "The Lives of Others", sadly he passed on last year.

Very watchable and a nice detour from common thriller/horror movies, but it is pretty much a more intelligent version of torture porn, which is, as we all know, movies for retared kids.

Henrik.