I've always despised the conventional; partly because of its excess. I also feel the road to the end and the outcome is separate and unrelated. I want to watch something that's going to taunt me and haunt me; something that's going to dangle a big juicy steak just out of reach and lure me to a place where I am force-fed cabbage. As a viewer I like to be messed with. I like to be provoked.
If nothing else, Funny Games provokes. It seems to be as sadistic as its villains, manipulating and toying with the viewer in the same way its villains play with their victims. The director doesn't just want to involve the viewer. He wants us to be an accomplice, to handcuff us to the villains and point a guilty finger in our direction. "You can stop this," the director seemingly taunts, "just get up and leave and it will all be over." It’s this kind of game play that sets the film's tone. By making us accomplices he shows us the impact the viewer has on film violence and its overall acceptability in today's society.
The two villains aren't real and the director doesn't want us to think they are. They are nothing more than placeholders, artifacts detailing our society's penchant for blood. They go by various familiar names; Peter and Paul, Tom and Jerry and Beavis and Butthead; the latter two duos referencing media violence and its effect. The scariest thing about these two white-glove-wearing sadists is their seemingly optimistic and thoroughly consistent manners. After mutilating the father's leg with his own golf club, the two splint it and repeatedly ask what they can do to help. They then help carry him into the living room and then kindly introduce themselves. Their manners and kindness come across emotionless however. They say please and thank you with mechanical flatness and detachment.
Manners, it seems now days, have become robotic; almost as if its part of our default setting. We say 'how are you,' just to say it most the time and hardly wait or care for a response. The violence in the film plays the same way. The two villains show no emotional range and carry out the murders on the same wavelength they shake hands. The director is screaming out for us to understand the effect of film and TV violence and the way it slowly desensitizes and neutralizes the viewer. During the famous remote scene, where the mother of the family steals the shotgun and blows a hole through one of the villains, it’s easy to cheer her on. In fact I've never felt more deflated and let down then when the friend of the villain grabs the remote and rewinds it back to before his friend was shot. Oddly enough, the violence performed by the villains is always performed off screen. But the bloodiest, most violent and brutal death is the one the director gets the viewer to cheer for; all because he gets you to feel that it's warranted. Similarly, when we see Jack Bauer kill 40 terrorists in one episode of 24 we also feel (or tell ourselves) that its warranted; bad people deserve to die. Director Michael Haneke disagrees. He argues that violence is violence and shouldn't be justified by a bad-guy-meter scale. As he involves the viewer, Hanake shows us just what a slippery slope film violence can be. Our society's endless crave for violence and mayhem can be seen on the TV guide schedule. In addition we go to films like Saw 4 and eat popcorn to perverse and torturous brutality; all the while justifying our intent.
Funny Games provokes. It just doesn’t ask questions but begs for answers. It's consistently shifting as well, seemingly disguising it's self as good guy/bad guy showdown. But that is not what it is. Funny Games is an indictment; it’s a call to repentance and better yet a giant mirror showing all of us what we've become.
*Haneke has directed an American version due out in March of this year. It's shot for shot and stars the great Tim Roth and Naomi Watts.
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