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Film: Funny Games
Release date: 25th May 2009
Certificate: 18
Running time: 104 mins
Director: Michael Haneke
Starring: Susanne Lothar, Ulrich Mühe, Arno Frisch, Frank Giering
Genre: Horror/Drama/Crime/Thriller
Studio: Artificial Eye
Format: DVD
Country: Austria
As you may have heard, this film is not an easy one to watch. Neither the more recent American remake, nor the twelve years that have passed since Funny Games was first released have diminished its impact. Some may instantly flinch at the mention of the word ‘torture’ and assume that this is the reason why people have cautioned against it. However, this is not Audition - and it certainly is not Hostel. What you’re getting here is what horror truly is. Michael Haneke here makes us contemplate what it means to display true malevolence on the screen. And he does so with such intelligence and restraint, it causes you to ask whether the outrage was necessary. From there on, you may be forced to ask whether we can make films as open and honest as we like, and whether or not there is any point to this medium at all. Hopefully, viewing Haneke’s film now will remind you that there most definitely is a point.
A family of three are greeted by blissful sunny weather at a lakeside holiday home, the location for what promises to be a relaxing, refreshing break. It is not long before this promise of tranquillity becomes disrupted, however. It is when the mother, Anna (Susanne Lothar), is in the kitchen that she meets Peter (Frank Giering), one half of the duo that will bring misery upon her and her family in the hours to come.
When Paul (Arno Frisch) enters, the three family members quickly become prisoners in their own home, subjected to unbearable treatment at the hands of apparently motiveless captors. Only resilience and cunning can be of any use to the family in escaping their torment…
In the introductory scene of this film, director Michael Haneke illustrates, with no ambiguity whatsoever, two of the primary themes that haunt this film throughout: manipulation and menace. As Georg (Ulrich Mühe) and Anna drive peacefully with their son along a road that winds through an idyllic mountain side, they are accompanied by the sound of gentle classical music that emanates from their in-car cassette player. As soon as we have become relaxed in the ambience of this moment, the peace is suddenly shattered by the cacophonous blaring of a John Zorn track. The viewer is jolted by the screaming and thrashing of this sonic pandemonium, before the words ‘Funny Games’ pounce onto the screen in a bloody shade of red.
The menace exuded from Haneke’s film begins once the sadistic duo of Peter and Paul take control of the holiday home, and remains intact until the terrifying ordeal is over. It is largely due to this inescapable menace that the film is such an arresting, harsh viewing experience. By occasionally leading his characters away from the main setting as the plot develops, thus extending and amplifying the terror and panic in suspenseful scenes, Funny Games displays familiar tropes of the horror genre. This notion is exemplified in other areas of the film, such as the unforgettable motif of the golf ball. With this in mind, the radical approach of Haneke in subverting horror genre conventions is tangible, taking the form of a minimalist aesthetic, long-takes, cutting away from violent acts and significant post-production techniques.
While the film works brilliantly as a genre piece, where the viewer elects not to engage so much with its cerebral content, it positively shines when viewed from an intellectual position. In this fashion, it can be fully received as the genuinely important work of cinema that it is. The manner in which Haneke communicates his message is certainly confrontational - blatantly manipulating his film and breaking the illusion of film being unadulterated reality delivered by an unseen creator. However, the filmmaker’s message about how violence is depicted on the screen, and how it is viewed, is articulated with very few depictions of violence itself. This is where the filmmaker should be really applauded. Incredibly, for a film where violence is such a key plot element due to it being the manner in which Peter and Paul control the captive family, barely a drop of blood is spilt. Furthermore, even when an act of violence is captured on the camera, the cinematography could be hardly less graphic. And still, the film is unbearably taut - perhaps because so much of it is based on the power of suggestion. That the filmmaker is able to keep us gripped so tightly utilising this restrained approach is demonstrative of his undeniable skill as a director.
Just as unexpected as this is the fact that, in the midst of this physical and psychological torment, the audience becomes a part of the game as well. It is possible that this is another reason - albeit a subconscious one - that the viewer is more aware of the violence that unfolds in that living room. As a consequence of the viewer becoming an accomplice to Peter and Paul’s heinous plans, Haneke questions the nature of audience reception. Further into the film, as the brutality increases and the once content, settled middle-class family become enfeebled to the point of being pitiful, the contrasting confidence and command over the situation that the antagonists provide may be preferable to some, thus reaffirming Haneke’s point about how a filmmaker can manipulate a viewer’s feelings.
Funny Games is largely reliant also on the efforts of its leading actors to carry each scene with conviction. All four leads all do this with merit, giving superb performances, from Giering and Frisch’s clinical delivery, to Mühe and Lothar’s devastating portrayals of trauma and suffering.
Simple yet complex, subtle yet overt, Funny Games is many things, but just a straightforward horror/thriller involving the theme of torture, it is not. This is a film that deserves your attention, and is guaranteed to get it, too. BN
Film: The Lives Of Others
Release date: 17th September 2007
Certificate: 15
Running time: 137 mins
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Starring: Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur, Hans Bauer, Ulrich Mühe
Genre: Thriller/Drama
Studio: Lionsgate
Format: DVD
Country: Germany
A lengthy political thriller that doesn’t have you snoozing by midway. Not a Matt Damon vehicle then!
Gerd Weisler is a leading Stasi officer dedicated to the socialist cause; assigned to oversee the surveillance of playwright George Dreyman, whose loyalty to the SED (Social Unit Party) has been called into question.
As a matter of DDR security, Weisler goes about his work with his usual discipline and efficiency (setting up surveillance HQ in the suspect’s apartment’s attic, and bugging the premises), but he soon has his staunch beliefs called into question, as he discovers there are ulterior motives behind his assignment – and realises that his own life is particularly unfulfilled…
The film is quick to paint Weisler as a remorseless and an unflinching character – opening with footage of an interrogation he undertook with a person suspected of helping a friend flee to the West, a recording of which is being used at a Stasi college, we are left in no doubt that Weisler always gets ‘his man’ – when he marks a cross against the name of a student who dares to question the morality of the methods he adopts here, you sense he’s capable of a lot more.
His life in East Germany, like him, is painted as cold and uninviting. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is perhaps a little heavy handed with the stereotype here, but it’s effective for the character’s and the story’s quick development – when we visit his flat, in an almost desolate area, it’s minimal, almost bare, and when Weisler wants affection he’s forced to pay for an overweight, unattractive prostitute who literally ups and leaves for her next client as soon as he’s finished.
Given the darkness that pervades his own existence, its little surprise when Weisler begins to warm to his subject, who lives a more comfortable and joyous lifestyle –he steals an illegal western book from his apartment, with the unsubtle bright yellow cover contrasting with the otherwise washed out, grey visuals. The film lights here also, to show how his bleak life is instantly enriched.
The bald Ulrich Mühe is well cast as Weisler, ably conveying his character’s intense nature aesthetically alone, and very subtle in his development of a new found awareness and conscious – the scene in a lift where a child reveals his father’s dissident views is particularly important, offering a clear indication of Weisler’s inner struggles.
Another significant development is when Weisler realises the real motives for his friend, Minister Bruno Hempf, having him undertake this operation. As with Weisler, the audience is made aware of the Culture Minister’s nature straight away – when he takes a fancy to the playwright’s actress girlfriend (played by the darkly beautiful Martina Gedeck) he crudely grabs her rear in public.
Thomas Thieme is suitably seedy in the role of the corrupt minister, systematically raping the playwright’s girlfriend (who fears the damning of her career if she doesn’t accept these events), and showing there is no loyalty to Weisler when the results he expects do not materialise. This is all about personal gain and not about the greater cause, which is what Weisler has always believed in.
As Weisler begins to assist the increasingly downtrodden playwright (removing/withholding evidence), director von Donnersmarck heightens the tension, and does a great job of illustrating the confused and depraved nature of the time, where an actress fearing the end of her fairly insignificant career would be willing to see a man she loves dealt a harsh and likely fatal punishment.
A humourless, dark and regimentally delivered thriller, perfectly representative of the time and the story, whose grip tightens to the very end. DH
Film: Funny Games
Release date: 25th May 2009
Certificate: 18
Running time: 104 mins
Director: Michael Haneke
Starring: Susanne Lothar, Ulrich Mühe, Arno Frisch, Frank Giering
Genre: Horror/Drama/Crime/Thriller
Studio: Artificial Eye
Format: DVD
Country: Austria
When Michael Haneke’s Funny Games was first screened at Cannes in 1997 audience members (including a few critics) were so shocked they walked out halfway through. The film has continued to provoke and divide audiences ever since, and has recently been remade by Haneke scene-by-scene in English, primarily, he says, to reach an American audience. Although containing many elements of classic horror, the film was never intended to be regarded as such, but more as a moralistic comment about the influence of media violence on society.
A middle aged couple Anna (Susanne Lothar) and Georg (Ulrich Mühe), and their young son drive out to spend a quiet week at their lakeside house in the middle of nowhere. There they are approached by two mysterious young men in white gloves (Arno Frisch and Frank Giering) whose polite behaviour turns increasingly threatening and violent.
Over the course of a night, they put the family through a series of sadistic games, bordering on torture, with apparently no reason or explanation. The men are polite and courteous, totally without remorse and regard their victims with mild amusement as the games grow increasingly degrading and unpleasant.
We are complicit in the violence as the aggressors repeatedly turn to the camera and address us directly with encouraging remarks and knowing winks. Also, in one particularly memorable scene, the characters refuse to accept developments in the story and actually take action to interrupt and dictate the flow of the film…
The message in Funny Games is very simple and very direct. Haneke presents us with two hours of realistic, sadistic brutality and forces us to examine our reactions. In a world awash with media images of violence and our seemingly insatiable appetite for more of it, Haneke confronts us with exactly that in its raw, unvarnished state. It’s disturbing and unpleasant to sit through, and this is exactly the point. Violence is not an adrenalin-pumping Hollywood explosion in Haneke’s eyes - it is disturbing, it is unpleasant, and we’re not allowed to forget for a minute exactly what it is we’ve been cheering for all these years.
Here, violence has a face, or rather two faces in the form of Paul and Peter (their names change several times throughout the film). They conform to no bad-guy stereotypes - they are polite, courteous, witty and calm. In one scene, they offer (to their victims and to us) several possible background stories for themselves which could explain their behaviour, then reject these as obviously untrue or immaterial. Haneke questions, through Paul, “what is it that would make this behaviour acceptable to you?” It’s another uncomfortable question that everyone watching Funny Games will have to answer themselves.
The camerawork is largely motionless and impassive, compounding the clinical atmosphere of the film and, at times, giving the sense that we’re watching the events unfold through CCTV. The acting throughout is impeccable, particularly from Susanne Lothar as Anna who is really put through the emotional mill, driven to the end of her nerves by the ordeal and the callousness of her aggressors. Given the nature of their characters, Arno Frisch and Frank Giering, as the two strangers, don’t have too much to go on but do a very good line in creepy, polite menace.
Haneke’s direction of the violence itself is masterful, or rather the implication of violence in that (aside from one notable instance) nothing is shown on screen - although you’ll later swear you saw all manner of horrible things take place, you didn’t actually see any of them. This is an exceptionally clever trick in a film about violence and attitudes towards violence. No hand-wringing, outraged moral guardians can accuse Haneke of making an exploitative piece splattered with gore and unnecessary brutality; on closer analysis, you realise the violence you believed you have witnessed was completely in your own head.
It’s all very clever stuff, but whether it makes for a good film is questionable. One feels as if what Michael Haneke really wanted to do was to make a violent horror film full of tension and old-school terror but didn’t quite have the courage of his convictions and made Funny Games instead. It’s a shame as well, as there’s some genuinely nail-biting moments to enjoy, such as a midnight chase scene between Paul and the young boy which owes as much to John Carpenter’s Halloween as it does to cutting edge European cinema.
A thought-provoking, unsettling piece. Not so much a film, more a well made lecture aimed directly at you. If you’re interested in examining your own attitude to screen violence then Funny Games is definitely worth a look, but be warned: if you’ve ever guiltily enjoyed a violent film, you’re likely to emerge feeling like a bad person who’s been given a thorough telling-off. That’s not exactly what I’m looking for in entertainment but it’s a powerful experience none the less. LOZ
