7. Funny Games
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2L72vwyfMg It really doesn't matter whether you're talking about Michael Haneke's original 1997 Austrian version of Funny Games or his 2007 U.S. remake, because they're almost identical stylistically and thematically. The film is concerned with two young boys who perform a home invasion and begin systematically taking a family apart. The film is full of surreal flourishes, such as one of the assailants using a remote control to re-wind time when his buddy is shot by the mother of the household, but things are morosely down to Earth for the film's grim finale. Funny Games ends with the boys taking the mother, the only surviving member of the family, out onto the nearby lake bound and gagged. They nonchalantly push her overboard, causing her to drown off-screen, while the boys return to land and knock on another family's door to ask for some eggs, seeming to repeat the vicious cycle of torture they just subjected one family to. One of the boys then turns to the camera, Haneke freeze-frames it, and the loudiest, noisiest, more dissonant heavy metal you've ever heard in your life blasts out. What's truly strange about it is Haneke's sarcastic approach, criticising our blood-lust and our decision to see the film. In the US version, Michael Pitt's eyes penetratingly stare into the camera, as if judging the viewer for what they've just sat through. It's totally unlike anything I've ever seen, and in its own way, quite brilliant.
Shaun Munro
Contributor
Frequently sleep-deprived film addict and video game obsessive who spends more time than is healthy in darkened London screening rooms. Follow his twitter on @ShaunMunroFilm or e-mail him at shaneo632 [at] gmail.com.
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