Review LXXVI
Funny Games (1997)
I'm sorry I vanished for so long, guys. I don't have an excuse given that I have been watching films, but I'm sure you all understand the feeling of not being in the mood to sit down and write something lengthy. However, now that I have a catchy song to listen to on loop (I'd link, but really, it's pretty odd - let's just say it's about shoes), I'm ready to sit down and write! I'm picking out a film I watched quite a while back, but it might be fun to review it. It's a film from Michael Haneke and stars Susanne Lothar, the wonderful Ulrich Mühe, Arno Frisch, Frank Giering, and Stefan Clapczynski. There was a frame-by-frame remake, but I stuck with the original. The film? Funny Games.
The film starts off with some blaring Naked City (whose genre, among many things, is noise) as we see a happy family consisting of Georg (Mühe), Anna (Lothar), and Georgie (Clapczynski) driving to a cottage near a lake in Austria. They meet two young men - Paul (Arno Frisch) and Peter (Frank Giering) - who initially seem friendly, but quickly overstay their welcome. Now the family is trapped in a game they can't escape.
Funny Games is an interesting piece. I didn't look into the film very much before watching it, so when my boyfriend and I watched it, he was often yelling out all the possible weapons the family could have used to attack and kill Paul and Peter. Of course, being the ignorant (and naive) one, I just kept thinking that they were in shock and I assumed that eventually everything would work out. Well, I can't talk about the ending because that would be giving away everything, but I can talk about the meaning of the film. Violence is common in cinema, or, at the very least, in Hollywood, and Michael Haneke was ready to portray this uber-violent nature in his film Funny Games. In this case we'll narrow it to suspense/horror films. This movie goes out of its way to break all the stock ideas that are recycled in every one of these films. I'll only talk about one so as not to ruin the film completely, but yeah, be warned, it is a spoiler. For example, horror films will keep one protagonist we liked (though I despised the one survivor in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Completely useless), but this film completely throws that out of the window. I won't say in what way, but you can already guess.
The primary antagonist, Paul, also constantly breaks the fourth wall and challenges the audience. I'd say the first moment that happens was the biggest up for me in the film. The way it was executed was just so well done, and so were the rest of them. He challenges you, asking if you bet the family will survive to the end. It's different, and I thought it was pretty cool. But as for the film itself, it's just a one-sided battle the whole way through, so it gets a bit tiresome. I mean, you're rooting for the family, but when all you get is them crying and being beaten down, the film starts to get long. You get these moments when you think maybe things will change, but no, it's static the whole way through. Those moments are not enough to really pick up the film, but some of them - including the one with Anna and the gun - were pretty darn cool. But Funny Games is basically pointing the camera at you and asking if you're falling into the typical rituals of horror/suspense films, and I liked that. I'm not hating on horror and suspense films (even though I can't say I like horror films since they all mostly rely on jump scares and not true horror like Blacula) because they follow a simple formula and it works to entertain the viewer, but I think it's always good to be aware of where a film will place you at times. Are you rooting for all the characters to die because they're completely incompetent? Are you hoping that one screaming female "protagonist" will run out of the building and survive? It's a refreshing change to have a film portraying all this violence and making you question it at the same time.
Can I recommend the film? Well, Arno Frisch and Ulrich Mühe are both beautiful, so, to an extent, yes. As a casual watch, it's not the best film. However, if you're looking for something a bit more deep and you're looking to release your anger on some characters, give it a watch. It's more leaning toward being an okay film than a really good film, but it'll get you talking.
A final remark - I never saw the remake (though it is supposedly the same film), but I don't feel any interest to watch it. The original is in German, so I'm sticking to it.
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