Funny Games [Remake]

Wow John.. Its been a while since you gave any movie a 2. I think the lowest you have given in my recent memory is Crash which got a 3. I stayed away from the original and plan to do the same with this flick. I feel sorry for you:-).

Thanks for the sympathy, Ranjan. I never reviewed the more-recent "Crash," but I gave the older Cronenberg "Crash" a 4/10. There have been a number of other 2's through the course of the past 10ᆟ years, though. :)

John

I love Michael Haneke's work dearly, but I don't connect with this particular aspect of his output. Benny's Video also falls into this cluster along with The Funny Games movies. Haneke is positively messianic about his mission to "teach" audiences about the perils of getting vicarious thrills from violence. He has noted that anyone who does not need to learn this lesson should simply not watch the movie. I'm definitely in the crowd that doesn't need to learn it which is why I turned off Benny's Video fairly early, though I did make it through the original Funny Games (and didn't watch the new one). Contrary to what some media pundits suggest, I find I have become more and more sensitive to on-screen violence the more I watch movies (some of which are violent movies). Long gone are the days I thought 'Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer' and "Natural Born Killers" were cool.

It is unsurprising that Haneke named Pasolini's "Salo" as one of his Top 10 films in the 2002 Sight &Sound poll. "Salo" was Pasolini's utterly nihilistic portrait of a group of young men and women being raped and tortured to death by a group of fascist perverts. There is not one moment of redemption in the film, no hope, no salvation. It's become a limit case for a lot of viewers' tolerance. Pasolini (who was murdered shortly after the film was made) said he wanted to leave behind a record of the TRUE EVIL of fascism. One that, like his film, had no redeeming qualities. I get the point. I respect the concept. I don't ever need to watch the film (well,maybe I do since Criterion is re-releasing it).


I hope nobody thinks of this as an exemplar of Haneke's work. He's a phenomenal director. Cache and The Seventh Continent are both brilliant films. Code Inconnu is a bit more problematic, but still fascinating.

naomi watts (Y)