FUNNY GAMES — SHOCKTOBER!

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Austrian auteur Michael Haneke successfully mocks the American media’s penchant for violence by pushing the limits of cinematic sado-masochism. The film’s brutal satire, unrelenting misery and surprisingly, its restraint make it all the more demanding of its audience.

Haneke makes his intentions clear in the opening scene; opera music plays in the SUV of a married couple with their adolescent son Georgie (Stefan Clapczynski) sitting contentedly in the back seat. They tow a boat. Husband Georg (Ulrich Muhe) tries to guess which Vivaldi song his wife Anna (Susanne Lothar) has put in the CD player. It’s a rich person’s diversion that identifies the family as operating smugly within a bourgeoisie paradigm of status quo tranquility.

Suddenly, the most satanic wail of anti-music interrupts the action like a dense tidal wave of toxic aural mud. John Zorn’s parody of heavy metal music boldly announces the bitter cold irony in the offing. We see the family’s calm faces like bugs under a microscope. The alienating music baptizes the audience into a distressed state of being. Already, Haneke has begun to objectify the family that will be humiliated and tortured for the remainder of the movie.

Haneke’s compositions are strictly formal. You can sense the rigor with which every long and medium shot is executed. It is a frigid distance, drained of humor. Inside the lake house the camera soaks up the interior elements, inviting the audience to take inventory of the white-walled home.

Ann stocks the fridge while George greets a stiffly mannered Fred with his teenaged friend Paul (Arno Frisch) dressed in white shorts, shirt, and gloves — like some kind of germ-fearing tennis player. Alone in the house, Ann is interrupted by Paul’s similarly dressed friend Peter (Frank Giering) asking to borrow four eggs for the neighbor. Ann accommodates but Peter drops the eggs. Ever so politely Peter asks for more. On the surface, Peter and Paul are courteous to a fault. But their actions belie an illogical pretense beyond their smirking but respectful words.

Paul sends Ann on a search for the newly missing family dog. He turns directly to the camera and shares a wink with the audience. It’s the first of several opportunities Haneke takes to check in with the viewer from the bad guy’s point of view. The director lets us in on the manipulation he is committing. He wants you to know, question, and accept that you are nothing but a mere product of the way you have been conditioned by the media.

"Funny Games" represents the most indigestible and unsettling cinematic experience you could imagine. To put it in the words of the director, "It’s a film you come to if you need to see it. If you don’t need this movie, you will walk out before it’s over."

Not Rated. 108 mins.

 

HAPPY END — CANNES 2017

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Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. Punk heart still beating.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

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Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

Michael Haneke’s run of making increasingly better films has come to an abrupt halt. The provocative auteur behind such gems as “Funny Games,” “The White Ribbon,” and “Amour” (an undeniable masterpiece) turns a regressive corner in a failed attempt at comedic satire posited as a familial drama simmering with racial discontent.

Social media and cell phones (used as video cameras) play into Haneke’s dubious story about Eve Laurent, a matricidal teenaged girl sent to live with her remarried dad Thomas (Mathieu Kassovitz) after carrying out her devilish deed, which Eve videotapes for her own satisfaction.

Although “Happy End” is not without its brief comic charms, the film’s tone is off, the ending unsatisfying. It seems as though Haneke is stealing too much from himself. In layman’s terms, he has jumped the shark.

Eve’s murderous scheme (believed by her family to be a successful suicide attempt) plants the young psychopath in the lap of French luxury since Thomas and his wife Anais (Laura Verlinden) live in a large mansion in Calais with Thomas’s ailing grandfather Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant), and Thomas’s mistress-of-industry sister Anne (Isabelle Huppert) and her twentysomething son (business partner) Pierre (Franz Rogowski).

Hidden familial problems abound. Thomas carries on an affair with a local cellist with an articulate if raunchy habit of expressing her outre sexual desires for him on direct messaging on Facebook. Naturally Eve breaks into daddy’s laptop and discovers his secret life. Eve discerns that her dad is incapable of love, at least "love" on her youthful romanticized terms.

The shark-jumping kicker arrives when Grandpa George realizes that Eve has the same killer instinct that enabled him to smother his ailing wife five years ago, a not-so offhand reference to “Amour” where Trintignant’s character did just that.

Michael Haneke has had an amazing run; he just wasn’t able to avoid falling into one of the many traps the befall most creative filmmakers if they’re fortunate enough to keep making films into their 70s. It’s not too late for Haneke to make another masterpiece on the level of “Amour” or “The White Ribbon,” but it doesn’t seem as likely or certain as it once did.

Rated R. 107 mins. 

FUNNY GAMES — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

Welcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

 

 

Austrian auteur Michael Haneke successfully mocks the American media’s penchant for violence by pushing the limits of cinematic sado-masochism. The film’s brutal satire, unrelenting misery and surprisingly, its restraint make it all the more demanding of its audience.

Haneke makes his intentions clear in the opening scene; opera music plays in the SUV of a married couple with their adolescent son Georgie (Stefan Clapczynski) sitting contentedly in the back seat. They tow a boat. Husband Georg (Ulrich Muhe) tries to guess which Vivaldi song his wife Anna (Susanne Lothar) has put in the CD player. It’s a rich person’s diversion that identifies the family as operating smugly within a bourgeoisie paradigm of status quo tranquility.

Suddenly, the most satanic wail of anti-music interrupts the action like a dense tidal wave of toxic aural mud. John Zorn’s parody of heavy metal music boldly announces the bitter cold irony in the offing. We see the family’s calm faces like bugs under a microscope. The alienating music baptizes the audience into a distressed state of being. Already, Haneke has begun to objectify the family that will be humiliated and tortured for the remainder of the movie.

Haneke’s compositions are strictly formal. You can sense the rigor with which every long and medium shot is executed. It is a frigid distance, drained of humor. Inside the lake house the camera soaks up the interior elements, inviting the audience to take inventory of the white-walled home.

Ann stocks the fridge while George greets a stiffly mannered Fred with his teenaged friend Paul (Arno Frisch) dressed in white shorts, shirt, and gloves — like some kind of germ-fearing tennis player. Alone in the house, Ann is interrupted by Paul’s similarly dressed friend Peter (Frank Giering) asking to borrow four eggs for the neighbor. Ann accommodates but Peter drops the eggs. Ever so politely Peter asks for more. On the surface, Peter and Paul are courteous to a fault. But their actions belie an illogical pretense beyond their smirking but respectful words.

Paul sends Ann on a search for the newly missing family dog. He turns directly to the camera and shares a wink with the audience. It’s the first of several opportunities Haneke takes to check in with the viewer from the bad guy’s point of view. The director lets us in on the manipulation he is committing. He wants you to know, question, and accept that you are nothing but a mere product of the way you have been conditioned by the media.

"Funny Games" represents the most indigestible and unsettling cinematic experience you could imagine. To put it in the words of the director, "It’s a film you come to if you need to see it. If you don’t need this movie, you will walk out before it’s over."

Not Rated. 108 mins.