The First reaction: It could be a rollicking comedy that would have me in laughter and the family would enjoy this!The Second reaction: When you delve into the title a wee bit more, the word FUNNY takes a new meaning! Funny for some would really mean fun. But for some who are mentally challenged Funny takes a meaning of extreme pain, calm mocking that can result in Death!!
Writer and Director Michael Haneke, known for his International films more in French the most widely acclaimed being The Piano Player, is known for mind thrillers. Here he has taken the mind game a notch higher. He had an early version of Funny Games (1997 Austrian) and now again in 2008 where he is more blatantly open about its unpleasantness. It’s his own remake.
Here he starts FUNNY GAMES played by suave and smooth young guys who seem to make calm composure equivalent to twisted humor and gory outcome as their new meaning to FUNNY!!
Haneke incidentally has actually shaken us with his methodic approach to a certain madness that prevails in the US entertainment circuit. He has adeptly made a mind boggling entertainer that you will realize is actually not an entertainer at all. But you see the fact is that you will believe that incidents like these can happen to any happy, hard working middle class family anywhere in the world… A vacation of sailing and open clear skies can turn into a nightmare of dark ‘funny’ incidents delivered with a deliberate calm and a sinister mind!! Naomi Watts (Anna) and her Husband Tim Roth (George) along with their son Devon (Georgie) arrive at their weekend getaway full of spirit and a definite mind to relax and have FUN!! Its really typical and more of a mood setting that Haneke has used when he shows us the way Anna goes about her chores in the house and the father and son preparing their sail boat for a sail on the sea. And as is a custom in the US and maybe elsewhere as well, the neighbor Peter (Brady Corbet) stops by to introduce him and ask for some eggs from Anna. His demeanor is pleasant, defying shyness as a clean cut regular American teenager, there is something insecure and creepy about his insistence. The sequence is very simple; Peter borrows eggs the first time and comes back for more as the first batch falls and breaks. Then he returns and asks for more eggs as the second batch has also fallen and broken. This calm yet insistent entry on the premises of Anna’s house spooks her and she gets into an argument with Peter. Georgie also stops in for something that Tim wants for the boat and then we see Peter’s brother Paul (Michael Pitt) enter the scene. Imagine this; Good hardworking family of three being forced upon to giving eggs to two pleasant looking, dressed in a very casual summer outfit and wearing gloves as though ready to take on the golf fairways, are suddenly cornered and cowered by the sheer physical force and the astonishingly suave laced with law language. Paul in fact during this conversation renders a blow with a 3 iron to George’s knee with such brutal force that he is a virtual cripple.Thus begins a nightmare for the happy family at the hands of two creepy boys who very pleasantly creep into the lives of Anna’s cocoon with a deathly calm, devious mindset and very spooky soft manner.Haneke has succeeded in giving us a film that under the name of entertainment has actually crossed all limits of human decency with a spooky cruelty that definitely results in DEATH!! Its not really surprising that the film intentionally lulls you with its title but when suave becomes deliberate creepy and spooky actions that zap the core of your thinking, you realize that these are indeed games the mind kind. Not FUNNY for you as a viewer but certainly FUNNY for the hosts of these game conductors.
Darkness shrouds your mind when the level of the game rises beyond decency. You see Anna stripped to her underwear, gagged and tied in front of the husband and son, only for the game conductors to ascertain ‘there is not a bit flab and sag on her’!!
This according to me was SADISM at its highest gross!!
But the game of fun in cruelty doesn’t stop here! Haneke has gone ahead and done us a rewind of a situation, which I will not describe here to maintain your curiosity levels only, to make Paul go and change the one thing that could have changed the scene totally. Now if that isn’t playing cruelly on your mind as a viewer then what?? I was thrilled to bits and horrified with the script and its goings on as the film unfolded to a most unpredicted ending!!
Haneke has adroitly and cleverly placed scenes of struggle for freedom by Anna and Tim. The entire episode of Anna desperately trying to revive her cell phone with a hair dryer and then immediately knowing that the battery is dying is pure genius of story writing. It misleads us as viewers and maintains your interest levels at its highest positive levels. Then you are dealt a sudden terrible blow of Georgie being brutally shot to his death. Haneke has even given us creepy pleasure when he actually makes Paul mock us as viewers while enjoying his sadistic side!! Yes, FUNNY GAMES is not the least bit FUNNY but every bit creepy and spooky.Naomi Watts as Anna has rendered an act that has the elements of scare, desperation, joy at finding a straw to survive and sheer despair at the loss of her son. She has portrayed these mixed emotions very professionally. Tim has been reduced to a cripple and his struggle is crippled and limited. Peter and Paul as the suave and spooky neighbors have excelled in the act. They are deathly calm. They enjoy every sadistic event that they inflict on the family. So much power have they put in the act that you feel like taking a gun and shooting them on sight. The response they have evoked in me was very violent. It actually affected me to that extent!! They have in them the attitude of calm, suave poise and at the same time a very sinister sadistic streak. The film is actually worth a dekho because of the performance of the cast and the cruel turns that are handed out to you one by one!!
As a film, this script has a beginning and then a very slow sinister developing plot which has the right ingredients mixed with sadistic gaming, valor and desperation for freedom and an ending that will zap you completely. It accomplishes in all aspects of viewing a thriller, drama with the right doses of tension. Pushing your buttons of panic and helpless emotions and yet a thrill to see it to the end!!
Haneke is, simply put, BRILLIANT!!p.s. This is definitely an adult film. Not real nudity but profanity and abuse to heighten sadism. Watch it with no child around!