Funny Games (Directors Suite) (1997)

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General		Extras
Category	Suspense	Interviews-Crew-Director Michael Haneke Audio Commentary-Dr Hamish Ford Lecturer in Film Studies Newcastle University Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Other Haneke Films
Rating
Year Of Production	1997
Running Time	104:00
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Michael Haneke
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Susanne Lothar Ulrich Mühe Arno Frisch Frank Giering Stefan Clapczynski Doris Kunstmann Christoph Bantzer Wolfgang Glück Susanne Meneghel Monika Zallinger
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	?	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	German Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

  It is a strange irony that a filmmaker as dedicated to unsettling and distancing his audience as Michael Haneke is so well represented on DVD. Thanks in the main to Madman Entertainment (Code Unknown has been released by Accent) all 8 of Haneke's challenging films are available for home viewing.

Funny Games dates from 1997 and is arguably his most disturbing vision. That's saying something when set against the unexplainable violence of Benny's Video and the mixture of sex, fetishism and debasement at the core of The Piano Teacher. Funny Games is a tale of bleak and relentless violence. It is also a film about manipulation with us as the viewer a guilty party.

Anna (Susanne Lothar), George (Ulrich Muhe) are a wealthy couple with a house on a lake in the country. On one perfectly normal day they drive to the country house with their young son and boat in tow. On the way husband and wife play games guessing the piece of music or the opera singer.

At the entrance to their holiday home is a huge set of iron gates. As they arrive at the property they notice that their neighbours have visitors - two well dressed young men. The city behind them, they begin to settle in for an idyllic week's holiday.

Before too long there is a knock at the door and one of the young men asks to borrow some eggs. He is so clumsy that he accidentally drops the eggs and then, accidentally, knocks the family phone into the sink. He asks for mre eggs and drops those too. He asks for more eggs.

Soon the other young man arrives and the air of unease grows thick enough to cut with a knife. These apparently well-educated, well-bred young men simply refuse to leave. After an act of violence the family are held captive and so begins a long night of tension, torture and "funny games".

The above summary could pretty much apply to any Hollywood horror thriller. Bad people take good people hostage and do bad things to them - who will survive? In a startling turn Haneke not only defeats every expectation of the genre but turns those expectations back on us the viewer.

For a start, the actions of these men are motiveless. They are both intelligent and psychopathic. When one gives a deep rooted explanation for his anger at the world it is revealed moments later to be a lie. Eventually the man called Paul (they use many names for each other in the film but Paul and Peter are predominant) explains in a glib way "that society can understand" that they are drug addicts, stealing and killing to feed their habit. This too appears untrue. Most scarily, they operate with an apparent logic which is often beyond criticism.

Secondly, Haneke defeats the expectation of the viewer for a payoff in terms of the violence. With rare exceptions all the violence in the film is off-screen. The horror is in knowing that it is going on and that it is unstoppable. In one breathtaking scene the camera lingers on Paul calmly making himself a sandwich whilst the sounds of suffering drift down from upstairs. In a supreme irony the giant gates at the front of the property, which are intended to keep dangers out, function as a cage for the family as they try in vain to escape. Unlike films such as A History of Violence and Natural Born Killers, Haneke does not exploit the violence to criticize it.

Thirdly, Haneke uses devices to invite us into the film.

The following information is crucial to an understanding of the film yet it may be a spoiler. I haven't blanked it out because it would make the review look a little like a released CIA document. My advice is, if you have read enough to make you want to buy the film - do so.

In an astonishing moment, during one of the games, Paul turns to the camera and winks. We as the audience are immediately confused and somewhat irritated by this gesture. Is he winking at us or at his evil colleague? Later the techniques become more blatant as Paul asks us if we want to take his bet that by 9am the next morning all the family members will be dead.

Peter is even more blatant. When asked by Anna why they don't just kill the family straight away he says: "Don't forget the entertainment value. We'd all be deprived of our pleasure"! Paul, for his part, ignores the call from the family to end it now arguing that "we haven't even reached feature length yet".

In the interview which accompanies the film Haneke talks about the mixed reception of the film at the Cannes film festival. In one of the most astonishing moments in recent cinema Anna picks up a shotgun from the table and blasts away one of the men. Audiences everywhere, including the enlightened Cannes crowd, applauded the graphic vengeance. Haneke then has Paul scrabbling to find the DVD remote. He picks it up, presses rewind and takes the scene back to moments before the shooting and easily snatches the gun out of her hand. If not before, it is at this moment that we realise that we are the young men and that we as an audience drive the violence. In a curious move Haneke agreed to remake Funny Games in the US with Naomi Watts playing Anna and Tim Roth as George. The film is due for release around Christmas time and it will be interesting to see how Haneke manages to take his uncompromising vision right into the belly of the beast.

Funny Games is an almost unendurable film with unparalleled bleakness and none of the genre defining release we as audiences have come to expect from our violent movies. It is shot in Haneke's usual spare style with muted colours. Haneke likes long takes, letting his scenes create their own life, and Funny Games is no exception. There is a central scene of almost 10 minutes duration where there is very little action and yet devastating emotional impact.

The leads all turn in outstanding performances. Anna is transformed from a woman of confidence and power to a total wreck by film's end and Ulrich Muhe, who some may recognise from the Oscar winning The Lives of Others, channels fear and desperation in perfect equal measures. The young men are also equal to the task as psychopaths who, in the case of Paul, are charming and coherent and in the case of Peter are timid and overly polite.

As said, it is hard to imagine what the mainstream US audience might make of the remake of Funny Games. However, it could not have come at a better time. With the market flooded with torture porn films like the Saw series and the Hostel franchise Haneke shows us, through bared teeth, how we use violence and bloodlust to our own ends. It is not a film for everyone and the casual viewer may find the atmosphere too disturbing. Funny Games is, however, a near masterpiece of cool logical dialectic that holds a mirror up to ourselves.

Just don't expect to like what you see.

Video

    Funny Games comes to DVD in a 1.85:1. transfer which is consistent with the original cinematic ratio. It is 16x9 enhanced.

According to IMDB this movie was originally shot on 35mm film. This is a surprise as the end product looks much more like a blown up 16mm print. Given the quite nice look of Le Temps du Loup (admittedly a 2003 film) this transfer must be considered a disappointment.

The picture is notable for its lack of sharpness as if it is slightly out of focus. The colour palette is dull and muted however this is undoubtedly consistent with the director's vision. Scenes such as the exterior opening shot of a car travelling along through the outskirts of the city into the country are blurry and over bright.

I suspect this to be a fault in the original print and not so much the DVD authoring.

The transfer is lightly sprinkled with film artefacts however they do not prove to be too much of a distraction. More of an issue is some rampant posterization in some of the dark scenes, particularly where the son hides out in the neighbour's house. It is quite noticeable and something of a distraction.

The sub-titles are clear and easy to read.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Funny Games is presented in a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack running at a lowly 224 Kb/s.

As with other Haneke films the use of music is very specific yet restrained. At the beginning the family are listening to opera in the car which abruptly transitions to some truly scary grindcore metal for the credit sequence. That piece of music is used again with great success later in the film. Otherwise there is no score as such.

The dialogue can clearly be heard and the audio-sync appears to be accurate.

Otherwise the sound is adequate.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Interviews-Director Michael Haneke

The DVD contains an interview with Michael Haneke. Despite the fact that he is a highly intelligent and erudite filmmaker he is also a direct and cogent speaker. In this interview he is able to give some explanation of the ideas behind the film. He said that rather than being a deconstruction of violence the film is really questioning the portrayal of violence in media and film. Prior to writing the script he had read various news articles about young people from good families committing criminal acts for no apparent reason.

Haneke's films are often informed by the themes of consumerism and the emptiness of technology. He stresses that the viewer must realise that they are an accomplice of the killer and that the film must be disturbing to achieve its effect. He responds to critics of the film who say it is too confronting by pointing out that "they will watch the film if they need to watch and if they do not need to watch the film they can leave the cinema". He decries those who watch the film and then say it should not have been made.

Audio Commentary Dr Hamish Ford - Lecturer in Film Studies University of Newcastle

There is a commentary track by Dr Hamish Ford, a lecturer in film studies. Without wishing to d*** him with faint praise he has taken on the difficult task of commenting on this movie when Michael Haneke has given comprehensive explanations of the ideas at work in his interview.

Still, Ford is no slouch and he has been able to overcome his dislike of the film when he first saw it with a respect based on an admiration of the film within the whole canon of Haneke's movies. With a film like Funny Games there is a risk of drifting of into esoteric film theory but Ford keeps proceedings on a practical basis which makes for an entertaining and worthy listen.

Theatrical Trailer

Trailers

There are trailers provided for other Haneke films. All look they were filmed in the cinema. Don't watch!

    The edition of Funny Games in Region 4 is the pre-eminent version available in the World at the moment for English speakers.

Only the Region 2 Scandinavian and German versions have an anamorphic presentation and the interview with Haneke. Quite frankly, I would be frightened to go to bed after watching the film without also watching this interview. The French version has a longer excerpt from the interview. However, this may not be a big bonus. The Haneke interview on this DVD was culled from a lengthy interview with Haneke when he discussed all his films. It may be that they have put in more material that can be found on the other Haneke releases in Region 4.

No other version has the commentary track which is a good guide to the ideas at work.

If you dare - rush out and buy this version.

    Funny Games is deeply disturbing and challenging film which crystallised Haneke's views on violence and the role of the viewer.

The transfer is a little disappointing but I would suspect that most of the problems stem from the original print.

The extras are interesting and informative.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall