Review: These ‘Games’ are definitely not for kids

Watching "Funny Games" is pure torture. It's not that the film is bad, mind you. Far from it. "Funny Games" is a work of unmitigated genius. But it is, most certainly, not for the faint of heart. Deliberately intended to disturb and provoke its audience, "Funny Games" works so well that it is, at times, nearly unwatchable.
In this incendiary and brutal thriller, an affluent, uppercrust family composed of father George (Tim Roth), mother Anna (Naomi Watts) and son Georgie (Devon Gearhart) arrive at their picturesque lakeside vacation home somewhere in New England for a few weeks of rest and relaxation.
When Paul (Michael Pitt) and Peter (Brady Corbet), awkward yet unfailingly polite young men dressed in tennis whites, stop by claiming to be friends of the neighbors in need of a few eggs, George and Anna think nothing of it. And why should they? The boys' manners and social etiquette are impeccable. They are genuine and sincere to all outward appearances.

But something is off. The boys won't leave, and the longer they stay, the more non sequitur their behavior and language become. The scene is troubling specifically because neither the family nor the audience can put its finger on what's so unsettling. Without context, the boys' actions seem completely innocuous. And yet, the sequence builds to almost unbearable tension. Only gradually do we realize that Paul and Peter are actually devils with cherub's faces.

When their intrusiveness gives way to a terrifying home invasion, their earlier words and actions suddenly take on a sheen of malevolent foreboding. Paul and Peter go about setting up a sadistic series of childish games, culminating in a bet that, by morning, every member of the family will be dead.

"Funny Games" is a savage commentary on the use of violence in entertainment. It exists as both a violent movie and a movie about violence, taking a disturbing look at how depictions of barbarism reflect and shape our culture.

Filmmaker Michael Haneke has been here before, not only in his superb "Cache," which also examines violence and voyeurism, but also in his controversial 1997 Austrian movie by the same name on which this film is patterned. Haneke hasn't simply remade the earlier "Funny Games" - he's duplicated it almost shot for shot, set for set, word for word.

"Funny Games" can be agonizingly - and intentionally - slow. It subjects the audience to long, antiseptic observations of the characters' agony. Instead of the kinetic editing usually associated with thrillers like this, Haneke shoots in long, unbroken takes, distancing the audience from the action and denying us the close-ups we expect. The simple cinematography, indicative of much of European filmmaking, builds the tension until you feel you simply cannot watch any longer. Haneke has built blindingly white sets (all the better to show blood, my dear) and has weaved soundscapes of jarring dissonance. Everything in this film is meant to make us uncomfortable.

"Funny Games" constantly blurs the line between reality and fiction, frequently breaking what, in cinema and theater studies, is called the "fourth wall" - that imaginary, invisible partition separating the audience from the action without which the illusion of theater and film would not work.

Throughout the film, Paul turns and addresses the camera. When he asks his hostages to bet on the odds of their survival, he turns to the camera, smirks, and asks us if we'd like to bet as well.

Haneke takes it one step further. Not only is Paul aware of the audience's gaze, he is also conscious of the conventions of narrative plot devices, discussing "realistic endings" and "plausible plot developments."

Paul is fully sentient of the fact that he is a character in a movie. But, he argues, that doesn't make him any less real. It is on that admission that the entire film turns. Mixing Brecht and Pirandello, Haneke argues that a fiction observed is just as real as anything else and that violence on-screen is every bit as deplorable as if it were occurring in real life.

details
Funny Games Cast: Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt

Director: Michael Haneke
Playing at: Tinseltown Rating: R (for terror, violence and some language)
Running time: 1 hour, 52 minutes

Grade: A