Funny Games
(1997) 108 Min.
Rated: Unrated. (mild gore, implied torture)
Country: Austria
Director: Michael Haneke
Stars: Susanne Lothar, Ulrich Mühe, Arno Frisch
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★★☆☆
A vacationing family finds themselves the victims of two imposing young men.
Synopsis:
An affluent German family is arriving at their lake house in Austria. The family consists of Georg, his wife Anna, their son Georgie, and their dog Rolfi. As soon as they arrive two men are introduced by the neighbor. Peter and Paul.
Peter asks Anna if he can borrow four eggs and proceeds to drop them. Then he clumsily gets their phone wet so it no longer works. As soon as he is off with the replacement eggs he returns with Paul. Paul gets excited over seeing Georg’s golf clubs and asks if he can try it. He takes a golf club and swings it outside (presumably killing Rolfi). Peter and Paul argue with Anna who want them both gone.
When Georg and Georgie return, Anna is flustered and Georg asks for the two men to leave. Paul is rude and Georg slaps him in the face. In retaliation Paul hits him in the leg with the golf club.
The men play another game and admit that they killed Rolfi. Anna must search for the dog as Paul says she’s “hot or cold” as she gets closer or further from the dead dog. She finally finds him in their car.
Even though a few friends pass by in a boat, Anna cannot tell them the truth as Paul is standing with her the entire time.
In the house Paul tries to get on a first name basis, but also taunts the family. He also taunts Peter calling him “fat” and divulges the fact that Peter’s parents divorced and that Peter was sexually abused by his mother. Paul laughs and says it isn’t true and that Peter is just a drug addict and that he, too, is just a drug addict who steal from rich people.
Paul also places a bet that the family won’t survive until 9:00 in the morning. He also asks the audience wondering on whose side they are on. Paul bets that they are on the side of the family.
Paul and Peter discuss how slim Anna is. Paul plays a “game” where he puts a bag over Georgie’s head so that Anna can undress. He pressures Georg to ask her to undress. Anna undresses herself and then is told to put her clothes back on.
Georgie has peed himself and when Paul pushes him up to get cleaned, he runs off and upstairs. Georgie climbs out of the house and is able to wade from the lake into the neighbor’s yard.
Paul goes to chase after Georgie and finds him in the neighbor’s house. Georgie walks around in the dark of their house and finds the neighbor’s daughter, Sissi, is dead on the floor. Georgie also finds a gun and when Paul approaches, he pulls the trigger, but it doesn’t fire. Paul then takes Georgie back home.
While Paul is making a sandwich, fighting and a gun goes off in the living room. Paul and Peter decide to leave. The camera pans back to find Georg on the floor, Anna in a corner and near the TV Georgie’s lifeless body lies. His blood is sprayed onto the TV and wall.
Anna and Georg, after some amount of crying and working together try to decide how to leave the house. Anna will run away and try to find help as Georg will try to dry off the mobile phone and call for help.
As Anna wanders around trying to call for help, she mistakenly flags down the car that Paul and Peter are in. So they return to the house with her and Georg.
Paul and Peter choose randomly which one will die and ask the wife which way should he die, by knife or by gun. Georg tells her not to answer so it will be over faster. Paul remarks that the film needs to be extended a bit more.
Anna tries to play their game and prays and as she does she picks up the rifle and shoots Peter in the stomach.
However, that is not how it really plays. Instead as Anna tries to pick up the gun, Paul stops her and shoots Georg instead.
In the morning, they take Anna out on the boat and the dump her (tied up) off the side at a bit after 8AM. They then sail the boat over to the neighbors which Anna had spoken to earlier in the film.
Paul walks up to the house and lets the lady know that Anna needs eggs and asks if he can borrow some. He turns to look at the camera and smirk as the film ends.
Review:
This film, according to the director, is meant as a statement against run of the mill thriller. Indeed, many times Paul speaks directly to the audience and smiles at the audience, betting that the audience sides with the family and wants them to escape. The film, itself provides a few false opportunities for one of the family members to escape, only to have the plan foiled or hopes dash.
Oddly, though the film is trying to make a point, the absolute violence and lack of any resolution, makes the film feel like it is pointless. It starts and ends on the same cycle without interruption. I would consider the film as “torture porn” except that even in that there’s scarce torture. All torture and violence occurs off-screen with the exception of seeing Peter shot. The audience is only shown the result. We see Georgie’s bloody body, but we don’t see Georg and Anna is thrown over the boat without being seen.
If the intention of the film is to torture the audience, then perhaps it succeeds in that. In teasing the audience by breaking the 4th wall, giving glimpses of possible escape for the family only to have that shut down, we too are participating in this ‘game’. The audience will want to side with the family, however in the end they are merely pawns in a game orchestrated by the filmmaker.
Overall, this film is recommended to those who don’t mind seeing sadistic games played out. Any usual audience might find the film frustrating in the lack of comeuppance for the film’s villains.