*Sarah*'s Movie Review of Funny Games (1997)

Rating of
4/4

Funny Games (1997)

*Sarah* - wrote on 12/29/08

Two psychotic young men take a mother, father, and son hostage in their vacation cabin and force them to play sadistic "games" with one another for their own amusement.

Funny Games is another one of those films everybody bare me has seen. Finally I found it in my supermarket this afternoon and just finished watching it. I have to admit that it toally blew me away. Funny Games is far more than a Horror, it's also a depiction of just how often Media violence is in our society and how much we take it for granted and almost let ourselved be entertained by this. Pure genuis!

The film opens up with a helicopter shot of the family arriving at their holiday home on the motorway. While watching this we are shown just how close the family, setting us up for one hell of a ride. This voyeristic technique makes us wonder why we are sitting here watching this and almost feel slightly instrusive on the family. That's the genuis of Haneke. I must admit that I didn't go too much on Hidden but this is abosolutly amazing. I can see some similarities in the two films there.

I know a lot of people will either love or hate this film I can see why but there are many different menaings to this film. For instance as I said beofre why, as a viewer you are sitting down to watch this and also questioning the viewing public as a whole. It also shows us parts which you might not fully be shown in an American film and almost plays upon that. Haneke uses emotions of the family almost as bait. The two men constantly play upon why the couple are crying and feeling this way and twisting it for their own amusement. There's no manipulation here as you might often find in a US film, you are given the opotunity to switch off, as one character says and question just how much violence you can take. Which I think is why this film is NOT pointless as some people have written here.

The characterisation in Funny Games is brilliant and key to the viewers understanding of the film. Both of the two main leads; Anna and Georg Snr are a middle class couple and very likeable indeed. As a viewer you can instantly releate to them and their son Georg. The film's path is not what you would expect as you really do warm to the characters. Oddly the representation of the two men: Paul and Peter are ones of such charm and sophistication that you don't feel that they're the villian on some stages. I'm going to admit that I did find the character of Paul very attractive indeed and didn't for a second think anything less-but that's another story entirely! Incidently Peter is also a man full of charm but is presented as less intelligent and an odd character.-we see this when Peter continuously calls him "fatty" which he hates.

Funny Games is also intelligently written and well paced. 1 hr and 40 mins flew by and left me utterly speechless afterwards, which of course is genuis on Haneke's part. Funny Games cleverly plays with the conventions of filmaking and asks the audience:

<i>We're not up to feature film length yet. You want a real ending with plausible plot development". </i>

Also has Paul looking at the camear and talking to the audience, which also gives the character as sense of arrogance to him and almost tells the audiene that he's in charge. What was the most clever thing about this film was the re-wind scene which did leave me slightly disturbed at what I had just watched.

Funny Games is one of the most disturbing films that I have seen and so cleverly written and filmed it's unbelievable. It'll leave you feeling horrified at what you've just watched and leave you wondering the why you watch violence in the media. Funny Games is a clever film and one which I highly recomend.

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