Tuesday
Oct262010
77 - Play Some "FUNNY GAMES" For Halloween
Tuesday, October 26, 2010 at 7:40PM I was kind of shocked.
Funny Games is the winner of our Freaky Four Halloween Hoe Down.
We've got some sick, sick fans...
Anywho, lets take a look at this Austrian commentary on violence in media!
Direct episode download (207MB)
Help support MYMHM by purchasing Funny Games on DVD or renting Funny Games on Amazon VOD!
And thanks again to all the fans that suggested films for our poll, and voted! We'll be having another poll soon! Maybe to celebrate the end of our one year moratorium on Lars Von Trier...
Reader Comments (6)
Watching your review brought back the memories of this movie... It is a hard movie to review, and you two did an outstanding job. :) Also not one I'd think of for Halloween. Do hope with in the next 12 months you will get around to REC2, Ginger Snaps (1,2 or 3) and Session 9. Interested on your views of these. Lastly, will be ordering stuff from your site tomorrow. :)
Thanks Jeff!
I gotta say, I was a little bummed that [REC]2 TANKED in the poll, but that's cool. Means we get to cover it later!
I was surprised by reaction to FUNNY GAMES. I thought I was really going to like it, but ended up being really conflicted, still liking what the film had to say though.
I think that Funny Games is the perfect movie to give to someone who has Travis Bickle, from Taxi Driver, as their personal hero, or who says, "I totally empathize with him." As such, I figured your audience was insulting you for giving you this film. It's really more of a lecture on wish-fulfillment (note: the groans that people have over 'the event' you speak of would probably make Haneke so very, very happy - I think he wants to confound all enjoyment of murder and violence and make people think about their enjoyment) than entertainment, and I think it is like shock therapy as opposed to entertainment.
The exact same things can be said of a French film called Irreversible which deconstructs the 'revenge murder' genre (an astonishingly and kind of sickeningly popular genre) which I loathe so much in a manner which is far, far less pleasant than Funny Games. Not a film I recommend for enjoyment, but if you think about the way in which it is constructed to disappoint those people who would normally enjoy the subject matter of the film then it is a resounding success. It is also a technical marvel, and his new film Enter the Void is, while loathed and loved in equal measure, the most amazing film I've seen in a while. It's playing in theaters for a short time at the moment, ending any day now, so I would check it out if you can get to it. It is like nothing else. Believe me.
The director of Funny Games won the top prize at Cannes last year, but I would recommend checking out his earlier film Caché instead. He brings his clever qualities of Funny Games to the fore without being such a pedantic dick about it. Immensely unsettling in the most subtle way possible.
HA! "Pedantic dick"!
I'll dig up Caché. I've really got to respect the voice behind this film, and I'm curious to see what else he's produced now.
I completely agree on the commentary of the film though. It's why I had such a hard time reviewing this film. I can't say I "liked" it, but I also don't think that's the point of it. It's a social experiment, which wants to tinker with your brain perception, more than it is a piece of media to be consumed.
Funny thing about films like this however, is they raise the stakes for films their trying to satire. I don't think films like Saw/Hostel, The Strangers, or the remake of Last House on the Left would be around if weren't for films like Funny Games paving the way. It's an interesting quirk of this kind of exploration, that by exposing us to and shocking us with this type of violence, it also acclimates and desensitizes us to violence. It's an interesting spiral. By condeming violence in media, by exposing us to extreme violence, he's made violence in media MORE acceptable.
Sad that we live in a world where the SAW films are becoming dull...
As far as 'raising the stakes' goes... virtually nobody saw Funny Games in America, either the German or the American version, and virtually nobody saw Irreversible in the US, so they can't really be blamed for raising the stakes. Maybe if they had been seen then people would have been less inclined, less 'mindless' when it comes to watching these types of films, and the stakes would have been cast away, at least for some people, but who knows. There is little in the world more difficult to do than get a large group of people to think, I've found. At the turn of the century (the last century, anyway) Upton Sinclair's The Jungle turned a lot of people off of eating meat because of the disgusting conditions in the slaughterhouses he depicted - so showing the right sort of thing can have an effect, at least under the right conditions. But, then, they did it out of interest for their health as opposed to their sense of ethics, and this wasn't even Sinclair's intention, so maybe people just do whatever the hell they want. Or maybe a work like this does make a difference! A very, very small one. But a difference nonetheless!
1/ the film's Austrian.
2/ for everyone who's wondering why Haneke took a philosophical angle..
it's because he's a philosopher.
3/ i must disagree, it's meant to be watched in flocks.
4/ yrs ago when i was watching 'funny games' on tv learned my lesson
and turned it off after the shotgun climax. i switched it on just to see
the remote controller flick, though. sick
5/ for a perfect experience i'd recommend 'DIE PIANISTIN' istead.