Post by RNL on Feb 18, 2008 2:22:32 GMT
Funny Games U.S.
Michael Haneke 2007 UK / USA / France
Essentially: different actors playing the same characters speaking a different language in the same formally brilliant film making the same plainly one-dimensional argument against violent cinema as its predecessor.
(There are some minor insignificant changes to some of the compositions and props.)
If you were to remove the five instances in which Paul breaks the fourth wall, what would you be left with? You'd be left with a quite excellent example of precisely the kind of film Haneke is (apparently) condemning.
So is that the sum total of his critisicm? A smug over-the-shoulder grin (no wink this time), followed by two direct addresses ("You are on their side, aren't you?" and "You want a plausible ending, don't you?"), a 'rewind' scene (seemingly the fulcrum of the film's 'argument'... ahem), and a final freeze-framed gaze into the lens.
Without consulting interviews and essays with and by Haneke, what would you be able to ascertain from this other than that the film is making a statement? You could of course infer quite sensibly that it's likely to be a moral and critical statement, but whatever his actual thesis is regarding violent media it's not illuminated by watching this film, at all.
If I didn't think he was such an intelligent and well-educated man, I'd have to conclude from his claim that the 'rewind' scene "shows the audience that they've just applauded murder" that he subscribes to some reactionary, myopic audience theory along the lines of the 'hypodermic effects' model. Hardly, surely.
So... what exactly is he trying to say? Interviewers are all apparently willing to lap up whatever he says, however vague, without further inquiry.
Paul's castigation, "You are on their side, aren't you?", seems to imply that Haneke believes we're not on the side of the family. Well, obviously most viewers do wish them victory, which is the very reason they 'applaud' Anna's 'murder' of Peter. He knows that. So he must be suggesting that the fact that viewers would be dissatisfied if the entire altercation was avoided means that they're not on the side of the family.
Fine, okay, fair enough; viewers of this kind of film do want to see the victims suffer before their final victory (which, yes, often involves violent revenge, though Anna's killing of Peter is not vengeful). But isn't it that they want to feel like they've gone through the grinder with the protagonists? "Film as catharsis" is the name of his essay (I can't find it). But that's all it is, a cathartic experience. It's not as though they're feeling glee while the characters are feeling misery or agony.
The way he talks about the audience 'applauding' Anna's 'murder' of Peter it's almost as if he doesn't believe people can tell the difference between a staged act of violence and a real act of violence, or as though there is no difference in morally evaluating one's emotional reaction to it. He can't be suggesting that the people who feel a sudden sense of exhileration when the actress playing Anna lunges for the prop shotgun would feel that same emotion surge if they were watching a real person so struggling for their real life. Does he think his audience are delusional psychotics?
There's such a hypocrisy in a director making a genre film like this and then plugging in a handful of moments in which his finger wags right out of the screen at you for watching it.
Michael Haneke 2007 UK / USA / France
Essentially: different actors playing the same characters speaking a different language in the same formally brilliant film making the same plainly one-dimensional argument against violent cinema as its predecessor.
(There are some minor insignificant changes to some of the compositions and props.)
If you were to remove the five instances in which Paul breaks the fourth wall, what would you be left with? You'd be left with a quite excellent example of precisely the kind of film Haneke is (apparently) condemning.
So is that the sum total of his critisicm? A smug over-the-shoulder grin (no wink this time), followed by two direct addresses ("You are on their side, aren't you?" and "You want a plausible ending, don't you?"), a 'rewind' scene (seemingly the fulcrum of the film's 'argument'... ahem), and a final freeze-framed gaze into the lens.
Without consulting interviews and essays with and by Haneke, what would you be able to ascertain from this other than that the film is making a statement? You could of course infer quite sensibly that it's likely to be a moral and critical statement, but whatever his actual thesis is regarding violent media it's not illuminated by watching this film, at all.
If I didn't think he was such an intelligent and well-educated man, I'd have to conclude from his claim that the 'rewind' scene "shows the audience that they've just applauded murder" that he subscribes to some reactionary, myopic audience theory along the lines of the 'hypodermic effects' model. Hardly, surely.
So... what exactly is he trying to say? Interviewers are all apparently willing to lap up whatever he says, however vague, without further inquiry.
Paul's castigation, "You are on their side, aren't you?", seems to imply that Haneke believes we're not on the side of the family. Well, obviously most viewers do wish them victory, which is the very reason they 'applaud' Anna's 'murder' of Peter. He knows that. So he must be suggesting that the fact that viewers would be dissatisfied if the entire altercation was avoided means that they're not on the side of the family.
Fine, okay, fair enough; viewers of this kind of film do want to see the victims suffer before their final victory (which, yes, often involves violent revenge, though Anna's killing of Peter is not vengeful). But isn't it that they want to feel like they've gone through the grinder with the protagonists? "Film as catharsis" is the name of his essay (I can't find it). But that's all it is, a cathartic experience. It's not as though they're feeling glee while the characters are feeling misery or agony.
The way he talks about the audience 'applauding' Anna's 'murder' of Peter it's almost as if he doesn't believe people can tell the difference between a staged act of violence and a real act of violence, or as though there is no difference in morally evaluating one's emotional reaction to it. He can't be suggesting that the people who feel a sudden sense of exhileration when the actress playing Anna lunges for the prop shotgun would feel that same emotion surge if they were watching a real person so struggling for their real life. Does he think his audience are delusional psychotics?
There's such a hypocrisy in a director making a genre film like this and then plugging in a handful of moments in which his finger wags right out of the screen at you for watching it.
