I squirmed through the original, which is unbelievably, awfully repugnant (with hardly any violence actually shown on screen), while being undeniably artful. I have little appetite for seeing my favorite actress Naomi Watts get brutalized. But I guess we'll see how shockable American critics really are.

WasatchMan

The art-house version of DEVIL'S REJECTS, perhaps?

Cacafuego

I love Michael Pitt and Tim Roth, but the trailer creeps me out every time I see it. Will we get a mini-review when you see it, MG?

heidiho

There is not enough money in the world that would get me to the movie theater for this one.

I stumbled upon the original a few years ago. I had no idea what I was watching, but it was fascinating. And then it got awful. Awful as in, I wanted to throw up. It's horribly violent in a "this could actually happen to me" sort of way.

The filmmaker is a manipulative son of a bitch who kills off his victims in ways that are morally repulsive and built to put the audience thru as much emotional hell as possible. Then, he, like his characters, laughs at us. Or he throws in a scene where you think "Oh, we're about to find out this is just a dream, or it isn't real"...but then makes it clear that it is real (in the movie) and the "fake" scene, is just a "funny game."

He's a hell of a movie-maker, but at the end of it, I felt like I had watched a snuff-film. And yet, I didn't turn away. I'm not a big moralist, but I seriously felt ashamed of myself for watching the entire movie. I would not do it again.

Hockeymom

Wow! A rich-white-family-in-danger movie--almost as rare as the white-teacher-saves-inner-city-youths storyline. How perverse that the bourgeois boogeyman is a softspoken twink-next-door instead of a tattooed ex-con or hillbilly inbred! It's a satire of violence as entertainment? Simply unprecedented. I wonder if they'll cloak the social commentary with splatter, thus leading the critics in a rousing debate over which is the excuse for the other? Must-see is right!

Bai Lingual

You can only see this movie once. And after that you have to scrub every single part of your body with clorox. It is violent, horrible and incredibly well made; to the point where I didn't notice that half the audience left the theater. But I couldn't do it again and having to see over-used River Phoenix lite Michael Pitt pout his way through a remake feels cheap, even for a genius like Haneke.

Telling my friends to go see it feels a little bit like the "this tastes horrible, try it" routine but it is life altering in a lock your doors and burn your X-box kind of way.

shutupitsmine

This is hilarious; when I saw the trailer, before I read the above, I thought: a milky version of "Clockwork Orange." The participation of Naomi Watts lets me know that this may be quality. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't even blink at this. She's really special...

anotherlovetko

MIchael Pitt's the dealbreaker for me, too. Initially the idea of seeing Naomi Watts suffer through a remake of the most evil and openly manipulative movie I've ever seen was the dealbreaker, but then I saw THE RING TWO and said "bring on the gays in the tennis outfits and Mickey Mouse gloves".

thesuspiciouspackage

My husband wants to see this. I hate gorenography. Is this going to fuck me up for the rest of my life?

Smackdown

Man, lot of wusses out there.

Cacafuego

Okay, you've sold me.

Smackdown

I don't know Hoberman's reviews in general, but if the shit he's spewing about Funny Games is typical then he has no business reviewing art films. "The play must please?" Come on. We're talking about cinema, not a goddamn vaudeville show. Can we not allow even a little serious, challenging drama in this lowest-common-denominator culture? I think the 'Hollywood Elsewhere' review linked above really nails the idea behind the film:

"It's strictly a "game" piece -- an exercise film that feels real and naturalistic as far as it goes until it periodically pulls back, stops and tells you (in three instances with Pitt literally talking to the camera), "We're wanking you off and trying to get you mad...get it? We're making a point about all the violent gunplay movies you've enjoyed ad infniitum for the last 30 or 35 years, starting with The French Connection but particularly since the start of the Tarantino wave in the early '90s. Violence is horrible, ghastly, reprehensible ....and it's time for the all the little moviegoing children out there to wake up to this simple fact."

It's a movie that feels twice as 'realistic' as the average horror movie for most of its running time, but then takes a few jabs at the viewer. It breaks the fourth wall to remind us that the only real monsters in the room are to be found in the audience, that bunch of sick fucks who decided they would go see a movie about a middle-class family getting slaughtered, and were then perverse enough to expect they were gonna *enjoy* it! Because really, only people who go into this film expecting to be 'entertained' are going to be disappointed. It's definitely an 'art movie' in the sense that it tries to be something more than an entertaining spectacle, even if that means some of the masses in search of cheap entertainment will walk out halfway through. But if you want entertainment, go see some horseshit romantic comedy, or a choreographed spectacle of blood and guts à la Tarantino. If you go into this *horror movie* expecting to be *horrified,* and you're not afraid of the fact that the most horrifying part of the movie might be what it reveals to you about yourself, then you'll love it. If, like J. Hoberman, you think that the 'job' of every drama you see is to please you and your naive petit-bourgeois tastes, then you're the kind of person who can and should walk out halfway through.

tweaked

The reactions of people like hockeymom and shutupitsmine are very typical, and they're why I absolutely love Funny Games. (Benny's Video is as intense, if not more so.)

The original is probably one of the finest 'horror' movies ever made, just because it goes right ahead and demolishes every single convention of the genre as it's been developed by mainstream directors. The violence is offscreen when you'd expect to see it, on-screen when you'd expect the director to cut away, and it *never* happens to who you think it'd happen to, or in the way you'd think it would happen.

so, @smackdown: if it's anything like the original (and I expect it will be very similar), it's not what you're expecting at all. I'd heard things about the movie that made me antsy about watching it, since I hate 'gorenography' quite a bit myself (walked out of that awful shite Hostel). But there are only one or two vividly 'gory' scenes, and they're not disturbing in the same kind of way. They'll scare the shit out of you, though, and it won't stop when the gore goes away. Haneke constructs this movie so that it subverts all of your most basic assumptions about what is 'supposed' to happen in a horror movie and what your role as an 'audience member' is in the whole procedure.

The whole gore trend and the blood and guts arms race has turned horror movies from fascinating to repulsive. I love Sam Raimi as much as the next guy, but movies like Evil Dead have made it so the genre as a whole is less concerned with scaring the viewer than with making them want to vomit. (And don't pretend that replacing the blood with black goo and the guts with quasi-Asian androgynous children makes the formula any less tired.) So people who think they're tough just because they can stomach a whole bunch of fake blood go see a movie like Funny Games, and they're truly *horrified,* leading them to fall back on excuses like saying Haneke is "a manipulative son of a bitch." Which is of course exactly what he wants the viewer to come out of the movie saying. This isn't a movie that tries to turn your stomach, this is an assault on you the viewer in every sense, one that's truly intended to 'horrify.' In that sense, when it makes viewers say "I would only ever see this once" or that they wanted to scrub themselves down afterwards - that means that Haneke has succeeded masterfully in achieving his goals for the picture.

And so I'll see the remake too, since I don't think this guy can make a 'bad' movie in the conventional sense...but I'm sure that Michael Pitt is going to be wretched. Arno Frisch's look and his perfect schoolboy German were what gave the original most of its weird intensity.

tweaked

don't forget america's finest film critic, the village voice's j. hoberman, who concludes his funny games review thusly: "Professional obligations required that I endure it, but there's no reason why you should." i actually didn't sit through the entirety of the, uh, original, mostly because it was more arch than disturbing, and i was more tired than inclined to give a shit.

still, haneke! gut direktor! you didn't mention time of the wolf, his great sorta-the-end-of-the-world tale, more poignant than the man(ipulator) is generally assumed to be capable. still, also, john zorn on the soundtrack, in the original plus which the simulacrum! that's bad-ass even if you are from l.a....

duanejones

Lotta wussies out there.

Cacafuego

@heidiho: I'm no film critic, but I'll def post a follow-up when I see it over the weekend.
@tweaked: Can you send me an email?

Mark Graham

@tweaked:

I'd like to respond to this by way of explanation. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and I'm sure there are quite a few people who will like this movie. I saw the original and I'm not a fan.

I've been a reporter and producer for more than 20 years, here and sometimes overseas. I've seen plenty of dead people, in photos and up close and personal.
I am all too aware of what evil people can inflict upon their neighbors and their own children. There are mundane ways to kill another person, accidental ways and twisted, sick ways that violate the conscience. And they are all real. And not entertaining.

So when I go to a movie that is well-made enough that I feel the same way I felt looking at a kid who had been chained to a tire and set on fire, I don't feel like I'm watching art. I just feel sick.

Maybe that makes me a "wussie" or demonstrates my "naive petit-bourgeios" taste.
But I'm OK with that.

Hockeymom

It should be noted that the director had nothing to do with the previews. Good interview in EW: [tinyurl.com]

Tiger_Tanaka

I've only seen the preview, and frankly it is repulsive. At least to me it screams "Torture is fun!". Another commenter pointd out that perhaps the filmakers are taking a jab at the audience in the end. Well the preview is enough for me to say a big No Thanks!

bigduke

@tweaked: Well summarized.

Haneke hates Natural Born Killers, which makes him okay with me.

Tiger_Tanaka

Yup. Lottttta wussies.

Cacafuego

@Mark Graham:

I'll definitely send you an email later on this evening.

tweaked

@Hockeymom:

when I was complaining about the naive petit-bourgeois taste, I was referring to that awful Village Voice review, and I think that it was someone else who was upset about folks being 'wussies.' Although we might react somewhat differently to the film, I certainly wasn't criticizing your comment. Actually, I think you hit the nail right on the head:

"He's a hell of a movie-maker, but at the end of it, I felt like I had watched a snuff-film. And yet, I didn't turn away. I'm not a big moralist, but I seriously felt ashamed of myself for watching the entire movie."

You're supposed to feel this way, sickened and offended and unable to pin the blame solely on the film itself. In the face of all the spectacular violence of American cinema, Haneke is trying to show violence for what it is, absurd, evil and in no way 'entertaining.' And that's why I would disagree with you perhaps only about the relative 'artistic' merits of the film. He's a hell of a filmmaker because he's made a horrifying movie that excludes all the little 'redemptive' and 'cathartic' elements that make the average splatter movie into an entertaining experience. This might not be fun to watch, and it might challenge one's notions of what constitutes cinematic 'art,' but as an avant-garde filmmaker that's exactly what Haneke is going for!

tweaked

@tweaked:
Thanks for your analysis. I appreciate your passion and thoughtfulness on this topic. (I'm being sincere...it's refreshing).

And don't judge me too harshly if you see me at Enchanted with my kids...I'm not above paying money to see "happily ever after!"

Hockeymom

I've seen both versions and they are both masterfully directed and perfectly acted and are probably the most horrendously upsetting film-watching experiences of my entire life.

If you have the strength and fortitude to take it, I highly recommend it.

I completely agree with everything @tweaked said.

Some day I would love to share the hilarious/horrifying experience I had helping work on music clearance for this film. But I fear I would be hunted down.

hildy

Great - now Hollywood isn't just recycling movie ideas, it's repeating the advertising hooks, and related critical discourse.

The shocking 'endurance test' hype and moral outrage here is just a recycling of the kerfluffle over Wes Craven's 'The Last House On The Left', and that was 36 years ago.

I'm so bored of pretentious filmmakers who think they're preaching some grand insight into human nature than the rest of us already figured out years ago. As long as writer's need conflict to create drama and forward momentum in a story, violence, (or the threat of it), will be used as a dramatic device - unless you're making boring arthouse films without narrative drive or climax.

Let me get this straight: 'Funny Games' is a film that revels in the use of violence in an exploitative fashion, whilst having a character awkwardly and patronisingly point out to the audience how moronic / psychologically-suspect they are for viewing it, (whilst ignoring turning the light of scathing insight back onto the filmmaker thought it was worth the time, effort and expense making said film - in this case, twice), creating a combatative response in the viewer that makes them want to yell obscenities at the filmmaker and leave halfway through?

That's a damn accurate description of the recent 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin howler 'The Condemned'. No-one thought that was art. You can't have it both ways.

Legowombat

Oh, and this fluffernut ain't nuttin'. Try watching THE MAN BEHIND THE SUN. [en.wikipedia.org]

Cacafuego

I'm just waiting for the art house version of Cannibal Holocaust.

Cacafuego

Plus, the original had Ulrich Mühe, who's pretty damn amazing.

Omelas

One of the great things about "Caché" is how ambiguous it is, and consequently it works on a number of different levels ... as a psychological thriller, as a study of post-colonial social tensions, etc. One of my problems with "Funny Games" is that Haneke has already given away his entire concept in interviews, so regardless of whether or not it might, as a piece of art, work on multiple levels, his own analysis of it reduces it to a one-note film. Saying that those who stay to the end are the ones who really "need" to see the film, as he has, makes him and his film seem condescending and cheap. This is why artists should do their thing and then shut up ... great art works because it opens up space for debate, taking on a life of its own. Since Haneke and his reviewers have already set the parameters for the debate, any discussion is reduced to fairly two-dimensional analysis of torture porn vs. social commentary.

Omelas

@tweaked: "I don't know Hoberman's reviews in general, but if the shit he's spewing about Funny Games is typical then he has no business reviewing art films."

fyi, j. hoberman has been reviewing "art films" for some three decades now at the voice, beginnning with eraserhead and pretty much reviewing non-stop weekly ever since. and incidentally, the folks at the BAMcinématek in brooklyn tend to believe he has some business reviewing, ahem, "art films": [www.bam.org]

finally, how many other things you don't know about "in general" are you so sanguine to declare have "no business" doing what they're doing? i wasn't aware ignorance resulted in such informed expertise. huh! guess that makes me ignorant...sorry, an expert, too!

duanejones

Reminds me of when someone remixed trailer of The Shining to look like a romance comedy. I guess the music can make or break a trailer. Out of all of them, I sure hope the dog survives.

bonniegrrl

@bonniegrrl: Doesn't look promising: [imdb.com] Actually, the IMDB keywords from the '97 film kind of seem to give away the whole movie. Didn't think I could stomach it before, and now it doesn't look like I'll even need to to know what happens ...

Omelas