Funny Games (2007 film)

Funny Games
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Michael Haneke
Produced by
  • Hamish McAlpine
  • Christian Baute
  • Chris Coen
  • Andro Steinborn
  • Naomi Watts
Written by Michael Haneke
Starring
Cinematography Darius Khondji
Edited by Monika Willi
Production
company
Distributed by Warner Independent Pictures
Release date
  • 20 October 2007 (2007-10-20) (London Film Festival)
  • 14 March 2008 (2008-03-14) (United States)
  • 4 April 2008 (2008-04-04) (United Kingdom)
  • 23 April 2008 (2008-04-23) (France)
  • 29 May 2008 (2008-05-29) (Germany)
  • 11 July 2008 (2008-07-11) (Italy)
Running time
 111 minutes[1]
Country
  • United States
  • France
  • United Kingdom
  • Germany
  • Italy
Language English
Box office USD$8.2 million[2]

Funny Games is a 2007 psychological thriller film written and directed by Michael Haneke, and a remake of his own 1997 film of the same name. Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt, and Brady Corbet star in the main roles. The film is a shot-for-shot remake of the 1997 film,[3][4][5] albeit in English and set in the United States with different actors.[6] Exterior scenes were filmed on Long Island.[6] The film is an international co-production of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy.[7][8][9]

Haneke has stated that the film is a reflection and criticism of violence used in media.[10]

Plot

George and Ann Farber, their son Georgie, and their dog Lucky arrive at their lake house. Their next-door neighbour, Fred, is seen with two young men, Peter and Paul. They find Fred reacting somewhat awkwardly. Fred and Paul come over to help put the boat into the lake. After they leave, George and Georgie stay outside by the lake, tending to their boat. Georgie asks his father why Fred was behaving so strangely.

While Ann is in the kitchen cooking, Peter visits to borrow some eggs. Ann gives him the eggs but Peter drops them. Feeling a little annoyed, Ann gives him another four eggs and Peter takes off. Soon afterwards she hears Lucky barking and Peter and Paul show up together. Paul asks her to try out one of the clubs outside and she begrudgingly approves. In the boat, George and Georgie hear Lucky barking hysterically when suddenly the barking stops. Peter and Paul request more eggs, as the last ones also ended up broken. Ann becomes frustrated, but when George tries to force the men to leave, Peter breaks George's leg with the golf club. The two young men then take the family hostage.

Paul guides Ann on a hunt to find the family's dog, which he has killed with George's golf club. When their neighbors, the Thompsons, visit, Ann passes the two men off as friends. They return to the house, and the Farbers are forced to participate in a number of sadistic games in order to stay alive. Paul asks if George or Ann wants to bet that they will be alive by 9:00 in the morning, and says that he and Peter are betting they will not be. Between playing their games, the two men keep up a constant patter. Paul frequently ridicules Peter's weight and lack of intelligence. He describes a number of contradicting stories of Peter's past, although no definitive explanation is ever presented as to the men's origins or motives.

During the "games", Peter and Paul put Georgie's head in a bag, nearly suffocating him until George asks Ann to follow their instruction to expose her breast to the intruders. When released from the bag, Georgie tries to escape under the help of his parents. He goes to the neighbors' empty house, where he discovers their corpses. Paul goes out searching for Georgie after subduing Ann with tape, leaving Peter to guard her and George. Ann begs him to let them go, but Peter refuses. When found, Georgie attempts to shoot Paul with a shotgun, but the gun fails to go off. Paul returns him to the living room, along with the shotgun.

The men play a new game, saying whoever gets counted out will be shot. Georgie panics and runs, which results in Peter shooting and killing him. George and Ann are grief-stricken, but they eventually resolve to survive. Ann is able to free herself and flee the house while George, with a broken leg, desperately tries to make a call on the malfunctioning phone. Ann fails to find help, only to be re-captured by Peter and Paul, who bring her back to the house. After stabbing George, they tell Ann to make a choice for her husband; a painful and prolonged death with the knife, or a quick death with the shotgun.

Ann seizes the shotgun on the table in front of her and kills Peter. An enraged Paul grabs the shotgun and starts looking for the television remote. Upon finding it, he rewinds the last occurrences back to a moment before Ann grabs the shotgun, thereby breaking the fourth wall. On the "do over", Paul snatches the shotgun away and admonishes her, saying she is not allowed to break the rules.

Peter and Paul kill George and take Ann, bound and gagged, out onto the family's boat. Ann tries to free herself, but is caught by Paul and Peter. Around eight o'clock in the morning, they nonchalantly throw her into the water to drown, thus winning their bet. They knock on the door of the Thompsons' house and request some eggs. The film ends with Paul glancing at the camera with a smirk.

Cast

For 2007's American remake, the character of Gerda was renamed "Betsy", the second family to fall victim to Paul and Peter were given the surname "Farber" and the third family were given the surname "Thompson".

Development

Michael Haneke wanted to make a film set in the United States, but for practical reasons he had to set the original 1997 film in Austria.[11]

After the 2007 film used the same house including props and tones, Robert Koehler of Cineaste wrote that this "proves for certain that—whether he uses the great cinematographer Jurgen Jurges (for the 1997 version) or the great Darius Khondji (for the new film)—Haneke is fundamentally his own cinematographer exercising considerable control over the entire look of his films."[11]

Release

The film made its British premiere at the London Film Festival on 20 October 2007.[12][13] Its United States premiere was at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival on 19 January 2008. It began a limited release in the United States and Canada on 14 March 2008, distributed by Warner Independent.[14] A wider release to more theaters came on 8 April 2008. The film was shown at the Istanbul Film Festival in April 2008. It did not receive a wide theatrical release in the United States before coming out on DVD. Funny Games was a box office failure, grossing a little more than half of its $15 million budget. Guardian writer Geoffrey Macnab included Funny Games's lack of success among the reasons for the closure of Tartan Films, which co-produced the film and released it in the United Kingdom.[15] In Germany, the film was released under the title "Funny Games U.S.".[16]

Home media

The DVD was released on 10 June 2008, in the US. The DVD does not contain any extra material but instead it includes both widescreen and full screen editions on one disc. In the UK, the DVD and Blu-ray were released on 28 July with the extra material being the original theatrical trailer, Q&A with producers Hamish McAlpine and Chris Coen, interviews with the cast, viral video clips and film notes.

Themes

Haneke states that the entire film was not intended to be a horror film. He says he wanted to make a message about violence in the media by making an incredibly violent, but otherwise pointless movie. He had written a short essay revealing how he felt on the issue, called "Violence + Media." The essay is included as a chapter in the book A Companion to Michael Haneke.[17]

Reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 51% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 142 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Though made with great skill, Funny Games is nevertheless a sadistic exercise in chastising the audience."[18] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 44 out of 100, based on 33 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[19]

Todd Gilchrist from IGN called the film "Unrelenting and brilliant, Funny Games is a truly great film – an incisive, artistic triumph that doubles as a remarkably thrilling and unique cinematic experience." Conversely, Joshua Rothkopf from Time Out New York called the film "a sour project that defines anti-imaginative."[20] A.O. Scott of the New York Times wrote: "At least with the remake Funny Games, Mr. Haneke shows a certain kinship with someone like Eli Roth, whose Hostel movies have brought nothing but scorn from responsible critics."[21] The Chicago Sun-Times review of 14 March 2008 gave the film a mere half-star out of a possible four.

The Times of London ranked it #25 on its 100 Worst Films of 2008 list, calling it "art-house torture porn."[22]

Soundtrack

The music in the introduction and the closing credits is "Bonehead" by Naked City from the album Torture Garden.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Funny Games U.S. (18)". British Board of Film Classification. 14 February 2008. Retrieved 2 February 2013.
  2. ↑ "Funny Games (2008)". The Numbers. Retrieved 4 March 2017.
  3. ↑ "Interview: Funny Games Director Michael Haneke". Cinema Blend. Retrieved 14 July 2016.
  4. ↑ "Fun and Games: On Michael Haneke's 2007 Remake of His 1997 Funny Games". Bright Lights Film. Retrieved 14 July 2016.
  5. ↑ "The Funny Games remake is identical to—and as disturbing as—the original". AV Club. Retrieved 14 July 2016.
  6. 1 2 "Funny Games remake talk". Arrow in the Head (joblo.com). 30 April 2007. Retrieved 16 April 2009.
  7. ↑ Buchanan, Jason. "Funny Games (2007)". Allmovie. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  8. ↑ "Funny Games U.S." British Film Institute. London. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  9. ↑ Elley, Derek (20 October 2007). "Funny Games". Variety. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  10. ↑ "Funny Games: Michael Haneke interview - cinema.com". Retrieved 31 July 2014.
  11. 1 2 Koehler, Robert. "Funny Games." (Archive) Cineaste. Retrieved on 12 October 2013.
  12. ↑ Driscoll, Rob (26 October 2007). "Female comedy roles are hard to find". Western Mail. Trinity Mirror. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
  13. ↑ Tilly, Chris (17 October 2007). "Top 10 Films at the London Film Festival". IGN UK. IGN Entertainment. Archived from the original on 25 October 2007. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
  14. ↑ Honeycutt, Kirk (30 November 2007). "Sundance Premieres section sees changes". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 18 March 2008.
  15. ↑ Macnab, Geoffrey (4 July 2008). "Death of a salesman". The Guardian. London: Guardian News and Media. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
  16. ↑ Funny Games U.S. - moviepilot.de. Retrieved 16 November 2009.
  17. ↑ Haneke, Michael (2010). "Violence and the Media". In Roy Grundmann (Ed.), A Companion to Michael Hankek, pp. 575–579. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-8800-5
  18. ↑ "Funny Games (2008)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 7 February 2015.
  19. ↑ "Funny Games Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 7 February 2015.
  20. ↑ "Funny Games Review. Movie Reviews – Film – Time Out New York". Time Out. Archived from the original on 13 October 2008. Retrieved 15 June 2007.
  21. ↑ Scott, A. O. (14 March 2008). "Funny Games – Movie – Review". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 June 2008.
  22. ↑ "The 100 Worst Movies of 2008". Times Online. London: Times Newspapers. 8 December 2008. Archived from the original on 17 June 2011. Retrieved 31 January 2009. ()
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