Hollywood's Most Un-Hollywood Film: Funny Games

Hollywood's Most Un-Hollywood Film: Funny Games
by David J. LeMaster

I was attracted to Funny Games because of the preview, an ingenious mix of graphic violence with Greig's musical delight, "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from the Peer Gynt Suite.  If you don't recognize the musical reference, you will as soon as you hear the music--it's rhythmic, fast-moving, and comedic--leading you to believe the movie is going to be as well.  The preview is purposefully misleading.

Why did writer/director Michael Haneke make this film?   For most movies, this is an easy-to-answer question: the director had a statement to make about society, or he wanted to explore a psychological profile; he wanted to shed light on a problem, he wanted to reveal what happened to him in real life, or he wanted to expose a fault by holding a mirror to society.  The most common answer is the director just wanted to entertain his audience (or, in everyday English, he wanted to make money).  However, none of these answers apply to Haneke's Funny Games.  The film satirizes upper class society to an extent, but that's certainly not the focus.  Had Haneke desired to do so, he could have explored two fascinating criminal minds, but there is no effort whatsoever to delve into their inner thoughts or motivations.  He certainly satirizes the traditional family, seems to address class conflict, and attacks the relationship of the cultured, refined rich with the wanna-be's.  But not one of these themes is fully explored.

Instead, Haneke plays a series of "funny games" on the audience, setting up great expectations and then paying them off with cruel jokes.  As a result, we the audience feel victimized, which appears to be Haneke's intention.
 
Haneke's opening sequence shows a family driving to its vacation home for the summer and playing the ultimate car game--guess the classical piece and composer.  If this game doesn't appeal to the common man, neither should the family dynamic, as the young boy sits in the back seat, neither bored nor angry, as most young boys would be, but completely enraptured in the game.  We hear the exchange as we watch the car drive for an inordinate period of time, and without seeing the faces of the speakers.  This establishes a convention used throughout the film--with the exception of just one of the many acts, the violence occurs off-screen, including the first grisly murder, which happens as we watch one of two abductors raid a refrigerator and find our imaginations working overtime as we hear screams from the room next door.  The effect is chilling and disconcerting; it's also alienating, as is the entire film.

The alienation is further created at the end of the opening sequence when, after the overly-long exchange, the camera settles into a shot of the family and the classical music is interrupted by the disturbing sounds of John Zorn and Naked City from the album, Grand Guignol.  The music provides a number of good jokes from the director to an unsuspecting audience; first, we are lulled into complacency only to be thrown into the violence of the song (and consequently the film); second, the jolt is awe-inspiring and daring and makes the audience admire Haneke's ability to manipulate; and third, for those who know the album's title, Grand Guignol, the tone for the rest of the film is set. 


In case you're in the majority of the people who don't know, the Grand Guignol is a style of French theater known for outrageous violence and cruelty.  The theatre included simulated acts of torture, murder, and execution, all of which are featured prominently in Funny Games.  In other words, the opening sequence is a musical scherzo, a joke, that sets the tone for the rest of the film.  It is also, quite likely, over most film-goers' heads, thus becoming the director's private joke.  And that, unfortunately, is the dominant feature of the entire film.  Funny Games is overly smart, overly cruel, and intentionally obscure, intentionally alienating the audience with a series of experimental tricks.  All Haneke's choices are brilliantly done, especially the extraordinary Michael Pitt, the most haunting and creepy villain I've seen on screen in years.  What a shame Haneke didn't give Pitt a true character; fleshing out the script and giving Pitt at least a semblance of background, motivation, and vulnerability would have saved this film.  Instead, Pitt is stuck with a one-dimensional cardboard character, and the young actor's talent is wasted.

And again, I return to my original question:  why was this film mad?  The answer, it seems to me, is for the director's own pleasure and entertainment, thus lowering this project with such great potential into an experimental mess--the director's cinematic masturbation.