A Funny thing happened on the way to the theatre...
OR DID IT? OMGZ
I watched Funny Games last night. At least, the recent American remake, starring Naomi Watts and Tim Roth. It's a fairly well-shot and incredibly well-acted movie and I must confess, I must, that I have no idea at all what to think about it.
The basic plot, for those who have not seen it: Roth and Watts play a bourgeois couple, a stereotypic modern yuppie set with 1.5 children (the .5 comes in the form of a golden retriever), a penchant for opera, a Land Rover and a lake house with a boat. Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet play a pair of young sociopaths who torture the family, ostensibly on account of their unkindness.
My initial conclusion is that I loved it. I think it's a brilliant movie, a strong excoriation of Hollywood's tendecies towards violence pornography. I think it's interesting how polarising it is, and how many people found it to be completely flat, or who seem to have thought the focus was on the behavior of Pitt and Corbet rather than on the film itself. I think it's curious that it received an 'R' rating despite minimal language--the violence is always and consistently offscreen, except for one conspicuous exception that makes sense within the movie.
It's clearly an arthouse film, of course. Mainstream audiences would never stand for its central premise, its conceits (or pretensions, if you prefer) or its conclusions. So, there are arthouse bits to it. I'm not sure if it's significant that this movie about Americans (in every conceivable way), set in America and intended for American release stars two British actors (the villains, in case you were wondering, are played by Americans). They drive a Land Rover. They listen to Handel, Mozart and Mascagni.
The basic take-home message is basically "oh ho, so you like violence in your movies, EH?". Director Haneke is generally fairly subtle (with clear exceptions that I won't reveal in order to preserve the plot) about this--as I said, there's very little on-screen violence in Funny Games. Naomi Watts is disturbing as she becomes progressively more broken, and she cries a lot, but there's no violence--which is actually, in some ways, much more powerful. For my money, he also manages to do this without being especially preachy--always a worry in such films.
Why is this an RDM post and not a review, then?
Because, like I said, I'm just not sure what to think. A lot of reviewers found Haneke's message lacking, his artistic decisions facile and his movie irredeemable (though I think some of them felt that the antagonists were really supposed to be the heroes of the piece, a conclusion I find unsupportable). I felt the complete opposite... and I admit to being a bit curious as to whether or not this means I've been taken for a ride by what amounts to propaganda.
Perhaps.
And of course, I don't actually really have a problem with the aestheticisation, as Wiki would say, of violence. It is somewhat interesting, though. Die Hard? Go for it. Hannibal? Hey, ol' Liotta had it coming. Gladiator? Bring it on. Somebody makes a movie about people dying where you never see anybody die? Who does that fucker think he is?
/a
The basic plot, for those who have not seen it: Roth and Watts play a bourgeois couple, a stereotypic modern yuppie set with 1.5 children (the .5 comes in the form of a golden retriever), a penchant for opera, a Land Rover and a lake house with a boat. Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet play a pair of young sociopaths who torture the family, ostensibly on account of their unkindness.
My initial conclusion is that I loved it. I think it's a brilliant movie, a strong excoriation of Hollywood's tendecies towards violence pornography. I think it's interesting how polarising it is, and how many people found it to be completely flat, or who seem to have thought the focus was on the behavior of Pitt and Corbet rather than on the film itself. I think it's curious that it received an 'R' rating despite minimal language--the violence is always and consistently offscreen, except for one conspicuous exception that makes sense within the movie.
It's clearly an arthouse film, of course. Mainstream audiences would never stand for its central premise, its conceits (or pretensions, if you prefer) or its conclusions. So, there are arthouse bits to it. I'm not sure if it's significant that this movie about Americans (in every conceivable way), set in America and intended for American release stars two British actors (the villains, in case you were wondering, are played by Americans). They drive a Land Rover. They listen to Handel, Mozart and Mascagni.
The basic take-home message is basically "oh ho, so you like violence in your movies, EH?". Director Haneke is generally fairly subtle (with clear exceptions that I won't reveal in order to preserve the plot) about this--as I said, there's very little on-screen violence in Funny Games. Naomi Watts is disturbing as she becomes progressively more broken, and she cries a lot, but there's no violence--which is actually, in some ways, much more powerful. For my money, he also manages to do this without being especially preachy--always a worry in such films.
Why is this an RDM post and not a review, then?
Because, like I said, I'm just not sure what to think. A lot of reviewers found Haneke's message lacking, his artistic decisions facile and his movie irredeemable (though I think some of them felt that the antagonists were really supposed to be the heroes of the piece, a conclusion I find unsupportable). I felt the complete opposite... and I admit to being a bit curious as to whether or not this means I've been taken for a ride by what amounts to propaganda.
Perhaps.
And of course, I don't actually really have a problem with the aestheticisation, as Wiki would say, of violence. It is somewhat interesting, though. Die Hard? Go for it. Hannibal? Hey, ol' Liotta had it coming. Gladiator? Bring it on. Somebody makes a movie about people dying where you never see anybody die? Who does that fucker think he is?
/a
| Galluskek 18.06.2009 - 1h16 |
Ridiculous! The entire movie is a chronicle of two internet trolls escaped into reality. It was surprisingly frustrating to watch, but it was otherwise a decent film. I liked the dog, it behaved in a realistic fashion. I also found it fascinating how easy it is to break Watts, because she acted the part terrifically. The gloves were also a marvelous touch, the antagonists kept themselves so detached from the events throughout the film. It worked for me as what it was, a reasonably well executed horror movie. The violence factor was actually refreshing, I suppose. I'm not a big fan of the spleen, so I'd rather not see it chunked across a wall like some sort of infernal sandwich spread. So the less ludicrous the gibs, the happier I tend to be. That being said, it was a horrible movie. The characters were inherently unlikeable and unrelateable, unless you happen to be one of those people that project weird facades around themselves. They also didn't prepare for this eventuality. Some people must live sheltered existences if they can't be arsed to keep a single syringe filled with insulin, or a tiny emergency transceiver, or a few knives in the couch, or a chemistry set in the bathroom, or a comprehensive knowledge of Judo or any martial art. They had it coming to them. And I didn't know who to root for, the Boringtons or the psychopaths. In all honesty the murder of the dog, the only likable character (How bad does a movie have to be when that's true? Well, for me at least, can't speak for everyone :P) was the thing that displeased me the most out of that movie. They took out the best actor, the one who could have saved them and turned this into a better movie and killed him. How horrible. |
| Comrade Alex 18.06.2009 - 1h34 |
Intriguing. I would definitely agree that the characters were "inherently unlikeable and unrelateable" (even Naomi Watts, whom I love dearly), though for me I think this was the point. It was not, I think, a movie that is about the characters, but about the movie itself. A meta thing--as I think (or hope) no one would root for the Internet trolls. Mind you, this is sheer arthouse pretension (of the sort that filters over into more or less mainstream society) and I generally do not like that. I could not stand Dogville, for instance (von Trier is German; Michael Haneke was born in Munich). Or Gondry as a concept. This is one reason why I remain undecided. I'm not sure exactly what the audience is supposed to think. Haneke may have intended for the audience to cheer when Watts shotguns either Leopold or Loeb, I dunno. But then we are left to wonder about the concept of "righteous violence"--because there are, in narrow scope, ways in which the Boringtons, as you put it, invite their fate upon themselves (mostly I cast this in terms of class conflict). I do not think this line of reasoning appropriate, but there have certainly been enough in history who do. I don't really generally enjoy feeling like I've been taken in by this sort of masturbatory intellectualism. So, perhaps consider the post a confession of sorts. I watched A Clockwork Orange as well, for the first time. I enjoyed the book, but I'm not quite sure I liked the movie as much. Perhaps Kubrick hasn't aged well. +ca |
| Galluskek 18.06.2009 - 2h35 |
Somehow I don't think that Haneke was thinking about the audience when he made this film. It is almost unwatchable to anyone but sadists, and the evidence via wikipedia's box office numbers, seems to support this assertion. I hesitate to use the term "arthouse" because I'm really not convinced this is anything but a director's attempt to market his meaningless horror film in a new place. This film has the stink of the auteur, especially since the original was also his. Its not so much pretentious arthouse to me as shameless abuse of a concept by a director that really needs to do something else with his time. By now its a tired concept, to have yuppies get tortured by a sadistic and detached agent of doom.(See every horror movie past 1987) While at first glance I would agree that this movie is an exercise in "masturbatory intellectualism" when I really think about it, the movie makes me doubt as to whether there was any point to it at all. What's the message? I cannot see it for life of me. Don't raise your child in a nice environment? Opera is bad for you? If someone asks for ANY INGREDIENT TO MAKE CAKES they are definitely evil and should be shot preemptively? This film is nothing more than what the director wanted to do at the time, 'cause he felt like it. That you try to ascribe some sort of social commentary to it is odd since I can't really pick anything significant out other than evil people are evil, and golfers sometimes ironically die by their favorite past time. I cannot accept your idea of the message, it is absurd to think that the entire movie is a shout-out to people who like a lot of violence. That's not a message! Here are some examples of messages: The Earth will kill us all. REDRUM REDRUM REDRUM Technology is evil/The AI is a crapshoot Don't leave your key under that doormat. Nazis v. nuns can only go one way. It teaches me nothing! I learn nothing. It was a colossal waste of time in that respect. But, as I said before, it was a good for what it is, a horror film. I just don't feel it fits under arthouse, unless you accept that meta-message or you make it a "movie about nothing". If they're going to be remaking something from 1997, they ought to try Air Force One, we've got new terrorists, a new president and the first one was quite entertaining. As for Clockwork Orange... I am ashamed to admit though I possess it, I have not watched it. I got 12 of those 70's dystopian movies for a Christmas present and while I've watched the other 11 the urge has never manifested itself to watch CO. However if you want some good ones from that set (which I later found out was actually downloaded and then packaged onto DVD by a tech-savvy cousin) The Andromeda Strain, Westword, and A Boy and his Dog were the top 25%. Oh, and these films all have messages explicit or otherwise, how odd. |
| Comrade Alex 18.06.2009 - 2h58 |
I would become Ellison's slave for all eternity if given the chance, so I can't fairly comment on A Boy and His Dog, though I find the movie a bit more silly than the short story it's based on. Haneke has a legacy of, or knack for, of movies that are fundamentally disturbing. Not all of them are released in the United States--as you point out, Funny Games is actually a remake of Haneke's 1997 film of the same name. The Pianist is another film in this vein of bleakness. I suspect one does not watch Haneke films for the entertainment value. I don't think the message is in particular dispute, however. The entire movie is intended to (whether or not it does is a separate question) transcend itself. It's not a conventional horror movie; this is why Michael Pitt's character constantly breaks the fourth wall to address the audience directly. This also drives Peter and Paul's discussion at the end of the movie about what is real and what is fiction. The movie is not loathe to shy from horror movie tropes (the knife we see get knocked into the boat early on into the movie) that it later gleefully subverts (when they just take it from Watts and throw it into the lake). I do not actually think it is entirely clear whether or not the events depicted in the movie are supposed to be real. If they are, then we are to assume the two boys are on a constant and unending path of destruction without so much as sleep. I do not think that was a directorial oversight. All the same, while the merits of the movie are certainly disputable, and I'm confused on them myself, I don't think the central message about the presentation of violence (particularly in certain movie genres, like the horror one) in Hollywood is all that abstract. Perhaps, however, one can take it one of two ways, depending on whether they liked the movie or not: it has a message, or it's a couple of hours of complete and irredeemable nonsense with nothing connecting it. I would be willing to accept such a division, I think. +ca |
| Galluskek 18.06.2009 - 4h01 |
You are right, the idea that hollywood horror movies are brimming with violence and gore is hardly abstract, but it is not what I would call particularly hard-hitting or even surprising. I maintain, however, that this movie wasn't particularly about that, and that you may be reading something into it that is not what was intended. Not that there's anything wrong with the recognition of "violence dissonance" between this and other films of the genre. I believe that this film had no message, not even that one. I subscribe to the notion that the director made this film as a proof of concept at best, and as a reaction to the movie-goer's penchant for selecting horror movie that sound funky at worst. This movie is a remake and the director remained faithful to his earlier work, I'd imagine, so I can safely say that the low violence "message" is probably a byproducts of German censorship of media... They have laws that prohibit the marketing of materials considered "harmful to youth" and many segments of the entertainment industry there are affected by it. They want to avoid another fiasco like in the 30's? fine by me, but I'll be damned if the fact that they have to be careful now means that I have to ascribe it to some sort of message in everything they make, like America is the den of evil and violence. The Germans can have their zombies replaced with kittens if they want, I won't judge. Just don't try to justify it was anything other than what it is. That is not to say they cannot produce violent stuff, but they definitely cannot advertise it in the newspaper. I'd imagine they have a thriving violent horror industry, it just isn't what Germany wants exported from their country. Do I make Haneke out to be some sort of money-grubbing bastard? Isn't everyone? Other than me of course. :P |