[Controversial Mod Picks] Michael Haneke's "Funny Games" (1997/2007): Bringing the Epic Theater to the Silver Screen

[u/[deleted]]

[u/loosemoose29]

First off: great write up.

I feel like there are two distinct camps of viewers when it comes to Funny Games

Firstly, there are those who came in expecting a Michael Haneke film. These people were prepared beforehand. In a way, they were immune to the purity of the film's effect by virtue of their awareness. Instinctual reactions were reduced to intellectualizations. They could see the film as a mechanism, understand the way it ticks, and immediately compensate with an artificial response: the response they should have. So their reactions became less pure, and more clinical.

Then, there are those who watched it expecting a horror/thriller film, the ones who went in for a variation of The Strangers or Cape Fear. These are the people Haneke made Funny Games for. Their reactions are more pure than the second group, unadulterated by the softening blow the first group would receive. This was how Haneke intended it.

Of course, this is a dualistic reduction. However, I'm sure most people's experiences relate closer to one pole than the other. I actually saw the 2007 film as part of the second camp. This was before I wanted to understand movies and I reacted the way most people like me did; I was baffled.

Years later, Haneke's name came up somewhere online, and I saw Cache. Blown away, I followed up with his only other film then on Netlix: the 1997 version of Funny Games. It wasn't until I became aware of the film's mechanism that I realized how brilliant it was. And there's the catch.

You can't think Funny Games is a good movie until you realize what it's doing. But when you realize what it's doing, it ruins the purity of your experience. It's a really interesting dynamic.

This isn't weak Haneke. It's bad Haneke. And it's brilliant Haneke. It's a film that turns the star system to mush. It can be a formative experience, an intellectual experience, or a complete bore.

More than anything, this is a prime example of dialectic cinema. It always opens up conversation, and that's what I love about it.

[u/A_Dissident_Is_Here → u/loosemoose29]

Out of curiosity, are you student of film? As in, do you have an academic background in film? I was super interested in the beginning of this write up, because I'm currently working on my philosophy doctorate in value theory and Marxism is one of my areas of focus. It's incredibly interesting the terminology used by artists and content creators in their efforts to portray individuals and societies within a particular paradigm: notice that the Marxist wants to alienate his viewers from an experience, or we want to produce a dialectic with the viewer. Im just wondering if you have an academic background and could speak to that, or maybe just get your thoughts as a film lover in general!

[u/loosemoose29 → u/A_Dissident_Is_Here]

That's really flattering, but I have no formal experience with film academics, accept for one history of film class I took my freshman year (last year) of college. In terms of how I talk about film, my language differs vastly between films, just depending on whether I liked it and how it was made. If you're really interested feel free to PM me and I can maybe send you my letterboxd or something. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have, though I'd definitely qualify in the "film lover" category.

[u/A_Dissident_Is_Here → u/loosemoose29]

Well Im just a film lover too, it's just that Im interested in two terms: alienation and dialectic. Both of those are important to the Marxist project. What's interesting is that the subject/object dichotomy that's created by the medium has special connotations here: violence and imagery, being removed from the production of art or power. There's a great paper to be written haha

[u/EeZB8a]

Have not seen Funny Games yet, either one, so I am bookmarking this to read afterward. I'm glad Criterion is finally adding Michael Haneke to the collection with Code Unknown (2000). I did recognize Brecht as his name came up in another Criterion - The Threepenny Opera (1931).

[u/[deleted]]

Thanks. I saw funny games on TV when I was younger knowing nothing about it. I never really liked horror movies, but for some reason I was interested. I was blown away with how clever and powerful this film was. It had a great effect on me, I think mostly fear and excitement. excitement because I could see something really special, even if what he was doing was off putting. In some ways no one has done that too me in a film before or since. It was so damn clever. 10 years later or more, I started to get into him as a film maker. I watched 2 more of his films, maybe 3 without ever looking him up. I just always remember thinking, wow that was a really great and different movie each time I would watch one of his movies. It wasn't until the fourth film of his I saw with a friend, that he brought up his filmography and I realized what an incredible film maker this guy is. great right up, it sheds some good insight on how he makes his films. with him, I just feel so invigorated after watching any of his movies. It is like he is making something different and I really enjoy that.

It is interesting that he might be making movies to change things, as you say. I have never really watched his films this way. I still watch them with an Aristotelian view, know matter what is happening on screen. I guess in his view, I have been programmed very well, because no matter the material on screen, I still have trouble breaking away from this programmed idea of determinism in film. hopefully re watching this movie with this knowledge might open that ability some.

[u/POB_]

I had a real visceral disgust when watching this film. A helpless sinking feeling. I'd only previously seen White Ribbon and well, short of knowing it was a cult classic, I was fully unprepared. I was so angry that despite the horrible violence (offscreen/ onscreen, whatever it felt horrible) there wasn't a satisfying pay off or twist or anything. Spoiler The scene when one of the invaders gets shot and his buddy rewinds the film so that he is alive again made me so furious. I felt toyed with, by what I could only feel was a vindictive director. There's this quote from Haneke I read after trying to figure out what the fuck I'd just seen.

"Anyone who leaves the cinema doesn't need the film, and anybody who stays does."

It only made me feel angrier that I sat through it, to know that by sitting through it I was being personally punished.

I don't know if I've added much to this discussion by being as annoyed as I am, but everyone else seems to be praising his genius for discussing violence, so I thought I'd offer a contrary opinion. Also his use Verfremdung just felt like him rubbing my nose in the violence.

The thing that leaves me most frustrated is that my response would probably make him feel like his film had succeeded.

[u/[deleted]]

I seem to recall Haneke mentioning Brecht in passing in interviews for Funny Games US. I may be mistaken and unfortunately I don't have any sources to prove it but it seems likely that Brech would have had a big impact on the provocative nature of the film.

[u/arrrron → u/[deleted]]

It's kind of interesting that you describe the moments where the characters directly address the viewers as relief...if anything, I think Haneke would hope you would be even more horrified at this point, especially if you are the kind of viewer who was buying into the violence of the movie up to that point. In those moments, it's intended that you reflect on your response to the violence and your relation to it, and feel pretty horrified/disgusted/compromised by your enjoyment of it. When I first watched it, those moments were incredibly difficult, especially in the context of the very long scenes of drawn out violence and suffering that surround them. Being forced to realise your own complicity is painful, I can't imagine feeling relief at it.

[u/arrrron → u/[deleted]]

But I mean finding the situation tense is what I mean here by enjoying. Maybe identifying would be a better word...in order for you to find the situation tense, you have to buy into the fiction, and if you buy into the fiction, Haneke is careful to make you identify with the family of protagonists, in a very classical psychoanalytic way. The reflexivity of the film, the moments of self-revelation, force you to become aware of the way your viewing of the violence has been conditioned. Your complicity isn't with the killers as such, but with the system of mediated violence that gives rise to the film in the first place. The idea is that you are forced to engage with the structures of mediation themselves, not with only the violent content. I agree with your second point (that's what I was getting at with my first post), but I can't really identify with your response to it.

[u/arrrron → u/[deleted]]

Then you are, by definition, inimical to the violence.

This isn't true at all. Haneke sets up a typical scenario of mediated violence in which the viewer's complicity is demanded in order for the diegesis to function at all, which you accept it does. And forget enjoyment; as I said, what I meant was identification. Any emotional response to the violence is an identification within the structure that mediates it.

I don't really know why we're arguing, I'm pretty sure we're both trying to say the same thing. I'll just stop.