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FUNNY GAMES U.S.
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They’re doing it for their own pleasure, they’re doing it for the games, and they’re doing it for us to people we’re more than likely prone to dislike. In many instances, Pitt’s character breaks the fourth wall and verifies that they’re both very aware that we’re watching and haven’t bothered to turn away, and this gives them a thrill. So, he and his friend engage us rather than leave us as spectators. They want us to play, and they know we want to see how it ends. Haneke exercises ludicrous acts of self-deprecating behavior on the part of both his villains and his victims, leaving us to despise pretty much everyone in this unfolding of folly and farce. Our villains are just as self-assured and self-important as our victims, while they pretty much demonstrate every wrong move you can imagine as one being held hostage. They’re too comfortable, and the duo here wants to ensure that they never feel that way again, particularly when they demoralize and dehumanize all three of these people at every turn and display a torture that rarely involves bodily harm. All they have to do is play along, and after a bet is made, there’s the definite assurance that the bet Pitt’s character places to his captives, and to us, will be lost by the time the film is over. The breaking of the fourth wall is one of the most unorthodox devices Haneke enlists for his thriller, but then “Funny Games” aspires to be the pure antithesis of a thriller. While we root for the escape and salvation of these innocent bystanders, it’s made painfully clear time and time again that Haneke is on the side of our two maniacal villains. We want retribution, we want reparations, we want revenge, but Haneke refuses to submit to our pleas, because he’s the storyteller, and he’s the one playing the games. Magnefique.
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The entire time I was observing the villains in Haneke’s remake of
“Funny Games,” I could only ironically think back to the monologue Tim
Roth gave in the opening of “Pulp Fiction.” His story about a man who
robbed a bank over the phone by claiming he’d shoot a child, while the
bank was never sure if there was ever actually a child was reminiscent
of the two young men who could have posed a threat to the couple and
their child here. There’s never an actual indication that they’re
harmful in the beginning, nor is there an indication of their deadly
capability until coerced with difficulty by their victims, there’s only
the possibility, and sometimes that’s all people need to incite
petrifying fear in a stranger. Often you don’t need to know that someone
can harm you, you just have to think it’s probable that they’re willing
to harm you. With the right manipulation, and insistence of sociopathic
tendencies, anyone can be controlled.
