See the new thriller from Michael Haneke
Dark thriller “Funny Games” was written and directed by Austrian filmmaker and writer Michael Haneke, best known for his bleak and disturbing style. A family vacation all of a sudden is broken by a visit from a pair of well-bred young men who storm the house with polite smiles and tennis sportswear. Once the family opens the door to the unexpected visitors, their vacation takes an unexpected turn, and they hope to stay alive until morning. The uninvited guests want to play a game: “You bet that you’ll be alive tomorrow at 9 a.m., and we bet that you’ll be dead. OK?”
A shot-by-shot remake of Haneke’s acclaimed 1997 film of the same title, “Funny Games” caused lots of disputes and controversy at Cannes Film Festival and brought international fame and acknowledgement to Haneke. In this film, Haneke explores our violent society and how depictions of violence reflect and shape our culture.
Haneke came up with idea of doing “Funny Games” in the middle the 1990s. And now he shot the remake aimed at American audiences. “This film is a reaction against the American “barrel down” cinema, which is overfilled with cruelty, naivety and games with human lives,” Haneke explained. “In many American films, human violence became the main subject of mass consumption. Only the original “Funny Games” was an overseas film with unknown foreign actors for the American audience and as a result the film didn’t reach American spectators.” This time the whole constellation of the recognized actors played in this American version, such as Tim Roth, Naomi Watts, Michael Pitt, Brady Corbet and others.
Haneke has been carrying out research of his favorite subject of “violence through the prism of mass-media” a long time before filming “Funny Games” in 1997. His trilogy “The Seventh Continent” (1989), “Benny’s Video” (1992) and “71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance” (1994), especially its second part, discloses the after-effects of deconstruction in the way violence is portrayed in mass media. “Funny Games” undermines the whole genre and makes us, as an audience, participate in the film through the emotional scenes. Haneke wittingly doesn’t give you any explanations and lets you figure it out all by yourself.
The film premiered at the London Film Festival in 2007 and American Sundance Film Festival in 2008 and received mixed reviews from critics. Time Out New York dubbed the film as “a sour project that defines anti-imaginative,” while the New York Times called it a “morally challenging work of art” and “a sophisticated act of cinematic sadism” What can I say? Enjoy!
Maria Leontieva can be reached at [email protected] or 496-4563
Kyiv (19 Chervonoarmiyska, 234-7381). From July 24
Original language with subtitles
Tickets are Hr 15 to Hr 40
