Funny Games
Rating: 4/5
Starring: Naomi Watts, Tim Roth
Directed by: Michael Haneke
Release Date: April 4, 2008
I imagine that German film writer/director Michael Haneke once received a phone call along these lines:
“Ja?”
“Hello Michael, this is American actress Naomi Watts. We met once at some awards show. You remember?”
He pauses briefly, utterly confounded by the situation.
“Ja?”
“Great. Look, I just rented ‘Funny Games’ on the Netflix, really enjoyed it. Thought it was thought-provoking, incisive, perfect for an American remake. So look, you direct, I’ll star and executive produce. It’ll be fun, ja?”
Haneke hangs up.
The incomparable Michael Haneke’s writer/director credits include the sadistic “Benny’s Video” and the mental purging that is “Caché.” Now he has brought to American audiences a remake of what may be his most disturbing project, the 1997 Austrian film, “Funny Games.” And no, the film’s not at all humorous.
The picture’s a remake in language and actors only. Haneke’s American “Funny Games” follows the original shot for shot, but the language now changes from German to English, and unknown German actors become Naomi Watts and Tim Roth.
Now, why would one do this? Gus Van Sant was famously lambasted for releasing a shot by shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” in 1998. Van Sant supposedly wanted to expose the film to a new audience. But Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche were showered in bad reviews, as they couldn’t compare to the original’s Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh. It turned out that American audiences were just fine with keeping some films in black and white.
At least Michael Haneke remade his own film instead of bastardizing the work of some unsuspecting, deceased director. But still, Haneke needed a pretty convincing reason to simply reshoot his film without improving any aspects, just simply changing the language spoken.
“Funny Games” follows a well-off family, comprised of mother Ann, father George, and son Georgie, (transliterally changed from the original’s Anna, Georg and son Schorschi). They drive to their vacation home with their boat and dog and the men immediately set off to dock the boat while wifey cuts vegetables and talks on the phone. A young harmless teenage boy Peter comes to the door wearing all white, including white gloves, asking for eggs. Mother Ann makes the mistake of letting someone with white latex gloves in the house and events begin to escalate until Paul and Peter have everyone bound or incapacitated in the living room.
Then they announce the titular game: The family wins if they’re alive in 12 hours; if not, they lose. So the rules are relatively simple to follow. The film then becomes progressively more warped with a salvo of jarring scenes until (God forbid) NASCAR gives you the willies.
This film entails a laundry list of my pet peeves. It’s a remake, and a melodramatic one at that. It has loads of plot holes. It unnecessarily breaks the fourth wall numerous times, as Peter directly addresses the audience, questioning their thought processes. The New York Times implied this device made the film overly pretentious, and the New York Times knows its pretension.
And yet, it all works thanks to the brilliant performances across the board. The family members, played by Roth, Watts and young Devon Gearhart, have their emotions dripping from their faces, each motion equally deliberate and telling. And the two deranged young men remain eerily polite, coming off more like bothered houseguests than cold-blooded killers. Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet pull off these roles with such intense, almost irritating cordiality that the viewer cannot help but be frightened by the film’s entirely realistic nature.
So bravo to Michael Haneke for not making any compromises. I imagine the first time I saw the original version I said something along the lines of, “I need a very cold shower.” But I just as easily could have said, “This is a film that will never be remade for American audiences.” Because the film does not actually chronicle a story or a series of happenings. The ending especially (which the remake now somewhat clarifies in my native language) reveals that “Funny Games” is simply an exercise in violence. It gives nothing in the form of traits that American audiences drool over, such as redemption or retribution. And so Haneke’s stellar reason for essentially copying his film must have been to see if American audiences could handle it, a type of film not seen since the heyday of Stanley Kubrick.
What possessed Warner Independent studios to finance this picture is beyond me, because there is absolutely no way it makes a profit. But I applaud their release of something novel. And I promise that all those who see it will feel something with tremendous passion, whether it be wonderment or indignation. It will be undoubtedly memorable and that’s a convincing reason to see any film.