I have to start with this one because it's stuck in my mind over the past few days (along with 'On Deadly Ground' starring Steven Seagal- my mind is a mixed up place).
I saw 'The Piano Teacher' early this year and it deeply affected me- a long largely silent treatment of a self-loathing woman, also a gifted pianist, privately disturbed and publicly decent. And her love affair which we are cruelly tricked into thinking might be her salvation.
So I can see where the relentless, unsympathetic cruelty comes from in 'Funny Games'. It's like writer/director Michael Heneke wants us to remember that films and their populations ARE NOT REAL! Yet it's his sense of realism, such as long, quiet scenes where not much happens, that makes the unhappiness of the characters' more tangible and almost void and null. I think he's into Neitzche. Or maybe he's simply Austrian.
Neitzche said this apparently:
"What does not destroy me, makes me strong."
Or,
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger"
Seems like this could be in Haneke's A-Z of audience manipulation; except he's more like a big eagle flinging a mouse around in his talons than jolly old grandma Neitzche.
In 'Funny Games', two young men dressed in tennis whites wander into a holiday house in the Austrian countryside. Man, wife and son having just arrived for the summer from town. Man and wife like opera, son is learning to like opera, albeit somewhat confused by it and them. Tennis white boys like psychotic punk music and eggs. Broken eggs. And golf clubs. And broken knee caps. The two young men stay on uninvited, chattering in a civil fashion, and torturing the daylights out of the family.
They've already done the same to a few other families in the region and are on their way to do a few more. There's a self-conscious tool in which the main Tennis White talks to the audience and rewinds and replays some of the action. It's a bit much, as I thought the torturer's philosophic musings were enough to explain that bad childhood's or psychosis are NOT the reasons for such activities. These killers are obviously into power and manipulation of emotions; like our grinning eagle, Haneke. And all three of them probably hate rich people too, by the way. Having said that, I admit I fast forwarded through a lot of the action myself. Couldn't bear it.
I seem to be delving into thriller territory lately, a road yet untaken by me. Why is there a market for watching naive helpless, somewhat stupid characters being put through relentless violent torture by powerful and unpredictable manipulators? Is it a reaction against insipid and idealistic portrayals of the 'humanity of humans' ? Or a realistic statement on the possibility that we are all torturous little fuckers in our own small ways? Or something else? I don't have the answers, let me know if you do.