The Amazon review vault - Funny Games ( Original Version )
A family's retreat is turned upside down when two thugs crash into their lives and torment them for the rest of the film. It begins innocuously enough but gets more sinister by the moment.
I won't detail their torture because that would give the game away really. The film seems to be a bit of a nudge-nudge wink-wink joke which plays the viewer on as if to say " Hey guys, it's really just a film. The way one of the thugs winks at the camera or just talks to the viewer as if to ask for our opinion as to what would we do in that situation. It's clever but yet it also reminds you of Saved By The Bell and Parker Lewis Can't Lose in how they'd talk to the camera as to involve you in the whole scene. However it's done to extremes here. But that's Haneke would have wanted it!
The film is not cheery, you will not get a happy ending and it is a sort of endurance test in to how much you can tolerate. In that respect it works like a horror movie. But this is not really a horror movie. It takes on psychological aspects which you don't get with cheap frights which give you a thrill. This is pure terror. OK there is one scene where you might cheer but that is quickly rewound to give further evidence that this is just a film.
Another point I'd like to make is the heavy metal song used, it has to be the most unstructured metal song I have ever heard. But on a more serious note, does Haneke imply all these thugs who carry out these horrific crimes in real life, listen to heavy metal music? That's a sort of lazy stereotype to trot out that's been bandied about by the media to create unease. In that sense I'm a little disappointed but really that's only minor when such a movie is made to grip you by the throat and force you into submission.
This film has no stylized violence that you would normally get. This is the real deal. It is brutal and it is unfriendly at best. Most of all it sets out what it wants to do - to shock people by the sheer brutality of mankind. It may be a touch stereotypical but then, that's not the point of the film. If you want realism in your films, no matter what the circumstances.....this is the one for you.
I won't detail their torture because that would give the game away really. The film seems to be a bit of a nudge-nudge wink-wink joke which plays the viewer on as if to say " Hey guys, it's really just a film. The way one of the thugs winks at the camera or just talks to the viewer as if to ask for our opinion as to what would we do in that situation. It's clever but yet it also reminds you of Saved By The Bell and Parker Lewis Can't Lose in how they'd talk to the camera as to involve you in the whole scene. However it's done to extremes here. But that's Haneke would have wanted it!
The film is not cheery, you will not get a happy ending and it is a sort of endurance test in to how much you can tolerate. In that respect it works like a horror movie. But this is not really a horror movie. It takes on psychological aspects which you don't get with cheap frights which give you a thrill. This is pure terror. OK there is one scene where you might cheer but that is quickly rewound to give further evidence that this is just a film.
Another point I'd like to make is the heavy metal song used, it has to be the most unstructured metal song I have ever heard. But on a more serious note, does Haneke imply all these thugs who carry out these horrific crimes in real life, listen to heavy metal music? That's a sort of lazy stereotype to trot out that's been bandied about by the media to create unease. In that sense I'm a little disappointed but really that's only minor when such a movie is made to grip you by the throat and force you into submission.
This film has no stylized violence that you would normally get. This is the real deal. It is brutal and it is unfriendly at best. Most of all it sets out what it wants to do - to shock people by the sheer brutality of mankind. It may be a touch stereotypical but then, that's not the point of the film. If you want realism in your films, no matter what the circumstances.....this is the one for you.
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