Despite an abundance of articles to the contrary, assign as "torture porn" never really developed into anything more than a collection of movies covering up gratuitous violence as halfhearted social commentary.
Previously, the remakes and films series that go to commercial success essentially brought about the subgenre's downfall by being flimsy, vulgar and just plain unentertaining.
The fact that Michael Haneke's Funny Games was first made 10 years ago in Austria excludes its inclusion in the torture porn canon, since at that time (not to mention in that country) the term hadn't yet been invented. But newly remade for U.S. audiences by Michael Haneke himself, and debuting in a fortunate timing wake of the genre's so-called commercially dead, his film takes on greater artistic proportions than likely the director or the film's distributor, Warner Independent.
In fact, in creating a film that effectively takes all of the hallmarks of torture porn, Michael Haneke has not only made a gripping and terrifying work of art, but also effectively revives the horror genre as a whole by completely deconstructing it. We are not in a typical horror movie, the deadly reality of Funny Games could have been in the news in brief in our daily paper.
Funny Games stars Naomi Watts as Anna and Tim Roth as George, an affluent couple who goes with their son Georgie (Devon Gearhart) for the weekend at their lake house, only to be intercepted by two unfailingly polite young men named Peter (Brady Corbet) and Paul (Michael Pitt). Initially dropping in only to request some eggs for a neighbor's breakfast, Peter and Paul soon insinuate themselves into the house, disable George and hold the family hostage. As Peter and Paul engage the family in an escalating series of dehumanizing games, Anna, George and Georgie quickly discover that the horrors of monster movies are nothing in comparison to the fatal triggering event of two bored young men exercising their disturbed imaginations.
In several of his films, most recently his 2005 effort Cache, Michael Haneke has examined the relationship between the filmmaker and his audience, not to mention the voyeuristic aspect of being tickled by watching films.
Funny Games is a remake of his own 1997 film of the same name is itself a commentary on the nature of our obsession with familiar ideas, but recontextualized within the actual framework of horror films. Ironically, however, it's this intelligence, not to mention his almost complete avoidance of any and all on-screen violence which may likely turn some viewers off. But for whose who prefer to see gore meticulously captured in their horror movies need not (or at least may not want to) apply to Michael Haneke's genre study.
Remarkable, however, is fearlessness of Michael Haneke's desire to really address the common clichés and themes in contemporary suspense stories. In the film's opening scenes, he coldly shows a minute of a family's idyllic weekend getaway, from their cheerful name-that-tune exchanges in the car to the unexciting unpacking of groceries to the annoyed hand-off of dog-watching responsibilities. Pointing us the reality of life. He's not trying to make us feel of a familial disharmony. He is only documenting the undercurrent of suburban irritation that comes with tackling boring everyday responsibilities. In other words, there's nothing in Funny Games that happens in a world other than our own, making the violence that much more real when it finally happens.
The irony, is that horror films are typically shot and produced on the cheap precisely because they attract a lowest-common-denominator audience looking for easy, graphic, and gratuitous thrills.
In Funny Games, it's a realism meant to demonstrate how people who enjoy such movies are accessories to the proliferation of violence in media, and Michael Haneke pulls it off with a master's touch. That this relentless barrage of psychological and physical torture is extremely well made and powerfully performed, Naomi Watts hurls herself into her physically demanding role with heroic conviction.
Funny Games exploits, examines and deconstructs these same conventions, and will haunt viewers long after they leave the theater.
Funny Games is a truly artistic achievement, remarkably thrilling and unique cinematic experience.
Published in www.deadfoxfanzine.com
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