November 6th, 2010

How Do Funny Movie Games End

Funny Games is an 1997 psychological thriller directed by Michael Haneken and it tells the story of two young men who hold hostage and torture a family with evil games. The movie stars Susanne Lothar (as Anna), Ulrich Muhe (as Georg), Arno Frisch (as Paul), and Frank Giering (as Peter).

As the Russian formalists, Haneken chooses to use a subjective camera. One of his characters (Paul) often crosses the fourth line and faces the camera, he looks straight at the audience and smiles or smirks. It seems that Paul is the only character who shows this kind of awareness: the awareness of being watched, is being observed by an audience. This makes him even more scary and it gives the audience the impression that someone is watching them too.

If in conventional thriller movies at least one of the sympathetic characters survives, in Funny Games, all of them die. In the 2001 U.S. production of the movie, when Anna kills Peter, Paul uses a remote control to rewind the film and prevent her from shooting his friend. Paul is also the character who makes comments on the events and, due to his self-awareness, he can manipulate the movie in his own interest and, more than that, to challenge the expectations of the audience.

This can be understood as a message against conventionality in movies. A movie doesn't have to follow some strict patterns and, thus, to become a commercial movie, but it has to carry a message and to play its part in the development of art.

After killing all the three members of the family, Peter and Paul have a discussion concerning the line between reality and fiction. Peter, who unlike Paul doesn't have this position of sells-aware character, can't accept his friend's idea that a fiction with an audience is as real as anything else. Although we are dealing with a thriller, Funny Games does not display graphic violence. On the contrary, most of the murders and mutilations occur off-screen. Nevertheless, some think that in this way the image because even more significant. The audience has to imagine what is not shown and, thus, the psychological impact is greater.

In the end, the two thugs are shown planning another murder. In this way a cyclical pattern is given to the movie. Maybe the director wants to say that violence is part of our lives, is part of the media and that good guys do not always win. Usually the good ones win and the bad characters are punished, but Haneken wanted something different. The audience has in mind a certain set of criteria according to which the movie is being judged and this movie doesn't fit their patterns and doesn't respect any of these criteria.

This movie is not about how a movie is supposed to be, but, on the contrary, it breaks the rules. It seems that the principle art for art's sake is the main guiding principle of the director, given the dark ending provided by Haneken. A happy ending is not always the best solution for a movie, since it can look so unreal. The movie has a pessimistic tone and it is wasn't made for entertainment. It tries to challenge and provoke people's believes and prejudices. Some critics find it almost nihilistic and hard to endure, but this is what separates Funny Games from the bunch of common entertaining movies which provide an unreal image of an ideal society.