Funny Games (1997, Austrian)

The only reason that I can think of why Michael Haneke has decided to do an American remake of his 1997 film, Funny Games, is because he really, really likes fucking with his audience. The first Haneke film I saw, The Time of the Wolf, lost me video rental privileges in my apartment for at least a month. The second, Cache, was one of my favorite films of 2006. Funny Games is like Cache, in that it uses the medium of film itself to implicate the viewer in what's going on onscreen. The premise is simple - a family is vacationing at their lake house when two young men appear at the door and take them hostage. The villains (Peter & Paul/Tom & Jerry/Bevis & Butt-Head) aren't motivated by theft, rape, or anything other than sadism. It's a recipe for a very sick movie, especially since the director is a genius at ratcheting up the tension (his films are worth re-watching just for the framing). But Haneke really goes the extra mile here with the interlocking use of two devices.

(CAUTION: SPOILERS)

The first is the most obvious - the villains break the fourth wall by directly addressing the audience. The way in which they do so aligns the viewer with their games, creating the assumption that we want to play as much as they do, that we WANT to see this family brutalized and ultimately killed. Why would we watch a film of this sort if we didn't want to see these things? The villains even go so far as to change the outcome of the story with one of the weirdest dues ex machina sequences I've ever seen. They are utterly relentless in their quest to give the audience what it wants.

The second device? Haneke turns the tables once more, denying us those same pleasures the villains are exacting from their victims. We don't see a thing below the neck when the mother is forced to undress. We don't see any gunshots save the one that is undone seconds later. Haneke is teasing us, calling us sick and then denying us our gratification. In doing so, he walks a fine line - is he crowing over how much smarter he is than his audience? (This is why I stopped watching Todd Solondz movies.) Or is he earnestly trying to break things up, to get us to acknowledge the way in which we receive media and are manipulated by it?

(END OF SPOILERS)

On instinct, I dislike the fact that a recent foreign film is being remade expressly for American viewers - we're too pampered in the first place, and so many of us already lack the initiative to explore the cinematic landscape - but after seeing the original Funny Games and thinking on it a bit, the remake now makes perfect sense. Haneke wants to play the same game again, only with a different group of people this time. It's the perfect externalization of the film itself. In fact, it practically takes up where the original leaves off. I'm thinking I'll see the new one when it hits theaters so I can hear how the audience reacts. Does that make me as sick as Peter and Paul?