I think one important arguement of Luke was lost in the midst of all the action: “And so what if Haneke is engaging in manipulation? Every Hollywood film ever made does so—should I accept the emotional manipulation of Sleepless in Seattle, Schindler’s List, and Die Hard but reject that of Funny Games?” This would be my only criticism to your standpoint; because, honestly, making a film is all about manipulation. Michael Moore manipulates you into symphatize with his own political agenda using humor, Schindler’s List abuses hard-to-digest historical facts for emotional manipulation, Requiem for a Dream is mainly an anti-drug propoganda nourished by unique visuals and innovative use of music. I love both of these films but that doesn’t change the fact that art of filmmaking is art at its most manipulative.

Now, Haneke is simply more honest and blatant with this, he pulls the curtains and shows you that when watching a film, you are actually being toyed with all the time. That’s why I think the fact that this film is playing tricks on you should not be enough reason for you to dismiss the whole thing.

As for Luke’s arguements, all the things that he has written so far are valid reasons to like the film; I can say he listed explanations for all of the 6 stars I have seen fit for it (or three stars in your scale). However, the simple reasons as to why I distance myself from Funny Games (namely the unimpressive mission statement, ridiculous similarities with Kubrick films and the fact that Haneke’s film was vastly overshadowed by A Clockwork Orange and other films that he admires etc.) were never among the things he mentioned. The discussion seemed to have revolved around the ‘experimental’ nature of the film and how it should be perceived. That’s why, despite agreeing with nearly everything he says, I still cannot be as optimistic as he is about this film.

Regardless, it was an enjoyable discussion – Luke did a fine job of rallying his arguments (I particularly liked your prophet/priest analogy). And although I still think I’m right (how could I not? ), I willingly admit that my arguments were primarily emotional in nature.

Also, if I had been an anti-Funny Games purist, I would have never initiated this conversation to begin with. That’s how you really pass the test: don’t see the film at all, and don’t talk about it.

I also agree with Kate that the rewind scene and the breaking of the fourth wall is what saves FUNNY GAMES from being an exploitation film. I remember when I saw the original, the rewind scene was my “holy shit moment” when I started figuring out what it was all about, I was really excited! I certainly didn’t feel insulted.

This time I knew exactly what to expect but I still found the tension excrutiating and the violence horrifying, (unlike in Hostel, for example, a film I enjoyed but considered a comedy.)

As for being manipulated by the director, that comes with the territory. All films are exercises in manipulation but I’ll take the director who shows his cards over the one who takes a red hghlighter to point out the dead little girl

PS: Kate, love that ‘”this is not a pipe” in film form’ comment!

I would actually argue that Funny Games *does* stand in contrast with the idea of enjoying violence for the sake of entertainment. The violence in the film is deeply, deeply unenjoyable–that’s why Haneke doesn’t even show the violence itself, but rather it’s realistic and painful aftermath. It might be possible to find pleasure in the visceral sight of someone being hurt, just because we’re so inured to it, but it’s impossible to take pleasure when we see the pain (both emotional and physical) that results from it. The only bit of violence in the film that’s both shown and somewhat enjoyable is when Peter gets shot, which I think is a nod to the idea that we enjoy torture films because we get to see the bad guys overtaken in the end–Haneke takes that justification away from us by immediately contrasting it with Paul shooting the husband.

I’m also kind of unclear on how you feel you’ve been lied to. I mean, every film promises to deliver something beyond what you see in the trailer. Every film has something to say, even if it’s not something you’re expecting–if he shows you something different, it’s not because you’ve been “tricked”, its just that you went into his film with preconcieved notions. He didn’t make you do anything.

I know you feel it’s disrespectful to the audience for Haneke to “show his cards” and acknowledge the fiction of the film, but I actually see it as very respectful–like other directors, he’s spoonfeeding us his message, but he doesn’t feel the need to cloak it in sugar to make the medicine go down. He’s also asking us to reflect on the nature and affects of film, and that requires an acknowledgement that it is, in fact, a film that we’re watching and not just a world that we get wrapped up in. I mean, it’s “this is not a pipe” in film form, basically.

Oh, and Kate: I couldn’t have said it better myself. +1 for mentioning Brecht.

I have not seen the film (and don’t plan to) but I think the discussion is fascinating. Both sides have good arguments and defend their case well. It’s so nice to read good writing from intelligent people on WHY they feel the way they do about a movie. It’s exasperating to watch a movie like “The Pacifier” and attempt to start a discussion about the value of the film (very low, by the way) to have the other side’s only participation be, “I dunno. I liked it.”

But that’s a different discussion, isn’t it?

I realize that my point about creating movies about love and happiness was perhaps a bit too facile. I would tend to agree with you here, Kate. You and I are not making diatribes against it, though, and Haneke is obviously more interested in grinding his axe than in effecting any kind of real change. It smacks of hypocrisy to me – if you’re going to rant and rave about the evils of enjoying violence for entertainment’s sake, then at least have the gumption to create something that stands in direct contrast to that, rather than erecting a work of art that is virtually identical to the very thing you’re ranting against. I can level that condemnation against him because he opens himself up to it, even as I realize my proposed solution is less than practical.

On your comment that the fourth wall and rewind scenes are what explicitly implicate the audience, don’t you think it would have been more effective – more subversive, even – for Haneke to not blare in bright neon letters what he was trying to do? Without that the audiences implication would be much stronger, even if they wouldn’t necessarily understand their complicity. The whole “show me – don’t tell me” mantra that is central to the art of screenwriting could apply here.

Finally, I feel his goal of making us participate in his film is flawed because he has to trick us to get us into the theater, which has been the major thrust of my argument. How can you condemn someone for buying a ticket to your own show when you’ve explicitly lied to them about what they are seeing?

Regardless, great thoughts Kate. Hope you stick around – we want more readers like you, the kind who are willing to articulate their disagreements with us and contribute to the community that we’re trying to build.

I also disagree strongly with Evan’s point that the film would have been successful without the breaking of the fourth wall and the rewind scene–for me, those are what *saves* the film from being merely that which it derides. Without those aspects, the audience isn’t implicated, the creators of film aren’t implicated; only the characters are. By speaking to the audience, Paul (? I think? the Michael Pitt character) makes it clear that he stands in for the audience Haneke is addressing, and also for the director and the screenwriter (not only Haneke himself, but any screenwriter/director). He’s the one who “directs” the scene, rarely muddying his own hands with violence but instead putting it off onto his “actor”, Peter. He’s the one who writes the script, offering lame rationales for Peter’s violence, all of which are ultimately unconvincing and utterly meaningless. He’s the one who asks us what we really want to see and then gives it to us, implicating both us and himself. He’s the one who calls bullshit and rewinds the film when it threatens to become unrealistic, standing in for the audience.

Haneke’s also adopting Brecht’s idea of the theater of alienation, deliberately alienating his audience from the characters and reminding them that it is, in fact, a movie, in order to keep our attention on the message, as well as to draw attention the medium of film itself, namely to point out that films don’t just exist in a vacuum. Instead of letting us passively watch and condemn the characters, he makes us aware of our own participation in their actions, our own desire for it, our own support of it through our action of buying a ticket and sitting through it.

Sorry for my long-windedness. Really, you should blame yourselves for such an interesting and inspiring discussion.

See from your site you have a certain appreciation for The Big Lebowski. As an FYI, we’re devoting next month entirely to the Coen brothers.

In an America that treats the Saw and Hostel sequels as been-there-dismembered-that reruns, Funny Games may sound like a movie a lot of teenagers would call a fun night at the megaplex. In Europe, however, it’s an art film. The new version wants to be both. If you enjoy it, Haneke implies, then on some level you’re complicit in what it’s showing you. By sitting there, you too are helping to turn violence into entertainment. (At several points, Pitt’s insinuating ringleader breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the audience.) Listening to this message, you may be tempted to call the movie’s bluff — to say, ”That’s not art! It’s just torture porn with fancy camera angles!” But Funny Games calls your bluff right back, since Haneke has designed it, knowingly, as a lofty exploitation film. Even the niggling implausibilities — couldn’t Watts try to retrieve Roth’s cell phone? Aren’t there more neighbors to run to? — create the B-movie logic of an enclosed hell. The acting is terrific. Pitt and Corbet are lissome creeps, Roth makes you shudder as he reminds you what pain really looks like, and Watts, in the most bravura sequence (a single 10-minute shot), rivets us with her war to survive.

A highly, if grotesquely, skilled exercise in Snuff Guignol, Funny Games doesn’t come out of nowhere. It has many antecedents, from the mocking cool sadism of A Clockwork Orange to the pressure-cooker intensity of Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs to the house-party torture games of Roman Polanski’s 1966 classic, Cul-de-Sac. True, Haneke, like Gaspar Noé in Irreversible, works in a more extreme — and facile — way. Yet he taps into an extreme era; it’s hard to deny that he gives good squirm. I’ll defend Funny Games not as a statement (on that level, it’s a bit of a crock) but as an experience, a cruelly banal nightmare that held me with its primitive fear factor. B+